Design and Measurement of Waveguide-Type PnpN Optical Thyristors for Optical Communications

Waveguide-type InGaAs/InP multiple quantum well PnpN depleted optical thyristors operating at 1.55 mum are proposed and fabricated for the first time. In this paper, using the finite difference method (FDM), we calculate the effects of parameters such as doping concentration and the thicknesses of the outer and inner layers of the thyristor to determine the optimized structure in the view of fast and low-power-consuming operation. With these results, the fabricated optical thyristor shows sufficient nonlinear s-shape I-V characteristics with a switching voltage of 4.03 V, a holding voltage of 1.77 V, and spontaneous emission along the waveguide.