Optoelectronic switches based on diffusive conduction

We study the process of diffusive conduction that we use in our optoelectronic switches to achieve rapid optical switching on a picosecond time scale . We present the characteristic Green’s function of the diffusive conduction derived for arbitrary initial conditions. We also report the series solutions of the diffusive conduction obtained for different boundary conditions V=0 and V=0 along the device contact lines in different device geometries rectangular and circular mesas . Using these analytical results, we investigate the effect of boundary conditions on the switching operation and the steady state behavior in optical links. We demonstrate the feasibility of using such diffusive conductive optoelectronic switches to establish optical links in return-to-zero and non-return-to-zero coding schemes. For multichannel optical switching, we discuss possible use of a single optoelectronic switch to accommodate multiple channels at once, with 100 optical channels with a 2000 mm−2 channel density and 10% cross-talk , predicted on a 300 300 m2 mesa with a device switching bandwidth of 50 GHz, leading to a 5 Tb/s aggregate transmission in principle. This approach of using multiple parallel channels on a single switch is completely opposite to the traditional idea of arraying many switches. This proposed scheme eliminates the need for on-chip switch integration and the need for the alignment of the optical channels to the integrated individual switches. © 2006 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2234818