DEMONSTRATION OF THE N-CHANNEL VERTICAL-CAVITY DOUBLE-HETEROSTRUCTURE OPTOELECTRONIC SWITCHING LASER AND HETEROSTRUCTURE FIELD-EFFECT TRANSISTOR

Optoelectronic integration of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers would be highly desirable for future optical interconnect and preprocessing applications. Configuring the double-heterostructure optoelectronic switch (DOES) as such a laser offers the potential for integration and utilization of the bistable switching action for thresholding and photonic switching operations. In this letter, we present the initial results of fabricating the DOES as a simple, two-terminal, surface emitting laser and as a heterostructure field effect transistor (HFET). Pulsed threshold currents of 10 mA are obtained in conjunction with excellent, high voltage contrast switching. The HFET had a peak transconductance of 40 mS/mm and a peak drain to source current density of 120 mA/mm.