Electrical Switching Speed of the Double-Heterostructure Optoelectronic Switch

Electrical switching times in the three terminal double heterostructure opto-electronics switch are measured and analyzed for the device with a third contact to the active layer. For a discrete device with a large parasitic input-output capacitance a switch-on time of 4 ns and a switch-off time of 26ns were obtained. It is determined that the channel contact should yield much lower switching times and that fast switching can only be obtained in smaller devices or with much smaller measurement impedances as would be obtained in an integrated circuit.