Optical Kerr signals of GaAs/AlAs multilayer cavities for a short pulse

Abstract

Optical Kerr signals of GaAs/AlAs multilayer cavities with various quality factor (Q) were measured by an optical pump and probe technique with ultrashort pulses. Although the light intensity is enhanced in the cavities by Q, light power is restricted by the narrower spectrum of the cavity mode than that of the input ultrashort pulse. The measured Kerr signals showed larger dependence on the quality factor than that expected by simple consideration for the field enhancement effect by cavities. It seems that the nonlinear phase shift in the cavity is enhanced by the photon life time in addition to the field enhancement. This indicates that multilayer cavities are useful for enhancement of the optical Kerr signals. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Optical Kerr signals of GaAs/AlAs multilayer cavities with two‐photon resonant quantum wells in the half‐wavelength layer

“…The thickness of the barrier layer at the center was adjusted to make the total thickness of the cavity layer equal to λ/2. The simulated light intensity of the cavity mode is also shown in the figure [7]. The simulated light is distributed in the complete multi-layers, although the maximum intensity is located at the cavity layer in the center.…”

“…We showed through a simulation that large optical Kerr signals were obtained due to enhanced optical intensity and enlarged nonlinear phase shifts in the multilayer cavity structure. We experimentally demonstrated for the cavities composed of a GaAs halfwavelength-cavity (λ/2-cavity) layer and 11~15 pairs of GaAs (λ/4)/AlAs (λ/4) distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) layers on both sides that the nonlinear optical signal intensity depended on the Q-values of the cavity [7]. We also experimentally demonstrated an ultrafast response of the optical Kerr signal of less than one picosecond [8], which was limited by the photon lifetime of the cavity.…”

Strong Sum Frequency Generation in a GaAs/AlAs Coupled Multilayer Cavity Grown on a (113)B-Oriented GaAs Substrate

“…Especially, difference frequency generation (DFG) methods with high conversion efficiency enable us to develop compact terahertz emitters operating at roomtemperature. A half-wavelength (λ/2) cavity structure sandwiched between two GaAs/AlAs distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) multilayers is useful for nonlinear optical devices such as all-optical Kerr gate switches [1,2] because extremely strong light field is realized in the λ/2 cavity layer. Recently, we have proposed a GaAs/AlAs coupled multilayer cavity structure, where two λ/2 cavity layers are coupled by the intermediate DBR multilayer, grown on a high-index GaAs substrate.…”

Remarkable Enhancement of Optical Kerr Signal by increasing Quality Factor in a GaAs/AlAs Multilayer Cavity

“…We have demonstrated the strong optical Kerr signals of a GaAs/AlAs multilayer cavity structures by inserting a resonant InAs quantum dots (QDs) as the half-wavelength (λ/2) cavity layer [1,2]. Recently, the numerical simulation using self-consistent transfer matrix method showed that the optical Kerr signal intensity of the GaAs/AlAs multilayer cavity structure is remarkably enhanced in proportional to the Q 4 [3], where Q is a quality factor depending on the numbers of distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) layers. It is quite important to confirm this extremely enhanced Q dependent signal for the future applications of nonlinear optical switches based on the GaAs/AlAs multilayer cavity structures.…”