Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers for Microwave Applications

There are three major issues about the semiconductor amplifiers design to be addressed here: 1. that the design meets the microwave applications' requirements in term of noise, bandwidth and dynamic range, 2. that it is compatible to integration with other opto-electronic components such as detectors, waveguides and lasers, and 3. that they are compatible to integration with current and future MMIC technology. A basic waveguide strucutre, common to lasers, detector and waveguide, is proposed here for optical amplifiers, integratible with MMICs. By choosing a common structure these components can be readily integrated together without the need for complicated multiple growth procedures and conflicting material and process requirements. The idea centers on the principle that the property of a gain medium can be manipulated by injection of carriers to vary its gain. Similarly, for an absorbing medium by adjusting its reverse bias voltage its absorption can be varied.