Excitability and optical pulse generation in semiconductor lasers driven by resonant tunneling diode photo-detectors

Romeira, Bruno; Javaloyes, Julien; Ironside, James; Figueiredo, José; Balle, Salvador; Piro, Oreste

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/11954

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We demonstrate, experimentally and theoretically, excitable nanosecond optical pulses in optoelectronic integrated circuits operating at telecommunication wavelengths (1550 nm) comprising a nanoscale double barrier quantum well resonant tunneling diode (RTD) photo-detector driving a laser diode (LD). When perturbed either electrically or optically by an input signal above a certain threshold, the optoelectronic circuit generates short electrical and optical excitable pulses mimicking the spiking behavior of biological neurons. Interestingly, the asymmetric nonlinear characteristic of the RTD-LD allows for two different regimes where one obtain either single pulses or a burst of multiple pulses. The high-speed excitable response capabilities are promising for neurally inspired information applications in photonics. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America