Patent ID: 6777718
Filing Date: 2004-08-17
Classification: B82Y,G02F,H01L

Abstract:
A semiconductor optical modulator comprising:a substrate; an optical waveguide layer on said substrate including a multi-quantum-well structure having a plurality of well and barrier layers, for receiving and guiding incident light; an optical absorbing layer on said substrate and adjacent to said optical waveguide layer, so that the incident light incident on and guided by said optical waveguide and having a wavelength &lgr;LD is guided into said optical absorbing layer; a cladding layer located on both said optical waveguide layer and said optical absorbing layer; and a pair of electrodes sandwiching said optical absorbing layer, wherein, in the multi-quantum well structure of said optical waveguide layer, each of said well layers has a band gap energy and a wavelength &lgr;g, corresponding to the band gap energy of said well layers, the wavelength &lgr;g being longer than the wavelength &lgr;LD, and band gap energy of the multi-quantum-well structure of said optical waveguide layer is larger than the energy of the incident light having the wavelength &lgr;LD.