| Fabry-Perot modulators with Multi-Quantum Wells (MQWs) cavities have been studied with great interest during recent years. Usually operating as intensity modulators, these devices have very high modulation contrast ratios, can be operated at very high speed, can be easily made into two dimensional arrays and can be integrated with silicon ICs. They are thus very promising for optical interconnects, optical switching and image processing applications. But before these modulators are to be used in real applications, there are several issues that need to be solved, including the parasitic phase modulation, the bandwidth of such modulators and the alignment of modulator operation wavelength with the wavelength of lasers or light emitting diodes.;In this work, the phase properties of Fabry-Perot reflection modulators will be discussed first and an experimental method using a modified Michelson interferometer to characterize the exact phase change will be demonstrated. It is demonstrated that the phase of the reflection light beam from a Fabry-Perot modulator is determined not only by the refractive index change inside the cavity but also by the absorption change inside the cavity. With the purpose of expanding the limited bandwidth of such modulator, devices with short passive cavities are designed and fabricated, the results are described and trade-offs between modulation depth and bandwidth will be discussed. In order to solve the problem of alignment and expand the functionality of Fabry-Perot modulators further, vertically coupled cavity devices with each cavity being electrically controlled independently have been developed. Both a coupled cavity modulator and an integrated light emitting diode with a transmission Fabry-Perot modulator are demonstrated; the first device enhances the modulation bandwidth while the second device has the potential of combining the advantage of high speed operation of MQWs modulators with the long lifetime and low cost of light emitting diodes. |
