Bandgap Engineered Photorefractive Devices for High Throughput 2D Optical Processing

By offering high response speed (~1us), reproducibility, and compatibility with standard semiconductor fabrication technologies, this film semiconductor based devices have enhanced the prospects of niche photorefractive application, such as Optical correlation. Despite fast speed, current MQW devices exhibit limited spatial resolution and diffraction efficiency prohibiting their applications to commercial and military applications. CoreTek Inc. proposes a new generation of photorefractive devices that combine optoelectronic properties of shallow multiple quantum wells and low temperature grown GaAlAs materials to over- come previous shortfalls in device performance. Our proposed "Distributed Photorefractive Devices" will exhibit nearly ideal characteristics for optical correlation and other 2D image processing applications that include a diffraction efficiency greater than 7.2%, response time of almost 40 ns at 1W/cm2 and a spatial resolution approaching 3um. In Phase 1, we will test the feasibility of this approach by fabricating, testing, and delivering prototype devices for 850nm operation. In Phase II, CoreTek Inc. will fabricate optimal devices for specific applications such as optical correlators and novelty filters and make them commercially available.