Optical bistable devices may someday be the key elements of all-optical logic and computing systems. Semiconductor devices appear particularly promising because of very large optical nonlinearities permitting the construction of very small devices. The goal is to develop small (~ 1μm), fast (~1ps), low-power (~1μW), high-temperature (~300 K) devices. Herein is reported room-temperature operation of a GaAs super-lattice device which is very similar in size, speed, and power to the low-temperature pure GaAs device.
by H. M. Gibbs, S. S. Tarng, J. L. Jewell, D. A. Weinberger and K. Tai