GaInNAs microspheres for wavelength division multiplexing

Abstract

The GaInNAs range of compounds is suitable for optoelectronic device applications in 1.3 and 1.55 mum lasers, because of the large conduction band discontinuity resulting in good electron confinement and improved temperature characteristics. GaInNAs is suited to wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) applications in high-speed optical Communication networks. Since WDM techniques are available for steady-state traffic, there is a need for an all-optical packet-switching layer at the end of the optical to electronic conversion domain, which consists of all-optical gates, such as semiconductor optical amplifiers, channel dropping filters, interferometers, resonant cavity enhanced photodetectors, and optical random access memory elements. In these planar lightwave circuits, GaInNAs microspheres with their morphology-dependent resonances, can be used as compact optical filtering elements. The spectral filtering characteristics of GaInNAs microspheres are analysed by calculating the elastic scattering spectra optimised for both transverse electric and transverse magnetic resonance modes at the optical communication wavelengths of 1.3 and 1.55 mum.