A Gallium Arsenide Electrooptical Interferometric Modulator*

Abstract

Interferometers in which the effective length of one arm can be electronically varied are important optical components for signal processing and high-speed laser modulation. Integrated optical Mach-Zehnder interferometers have been fabricated in LiNO3 but, to our knowledge, there have been no reports of such an interferometer in the III-V semiconductors. Interferometers in the III-V's have the potential of being integrated with lasers, detectors and high speed electronic devices for a truly monolithic integrated optical circuit. In this paper we report initial results on a GaAs interferometer capable of amplitude modulation via the electrooptic effect.