Optically controlled electroabsorption modulators for unconstrained wavelength conversion

We introduce a proof-of-concept, optically controlled, optical switch based on the monolithic integration of a surface-illuminated photodetector and a waveguide electroabsorption modulator. We demonstrate unconstrained wavelength conversion over the entire center telecommunication wavelength band ~C band! and optical switching up to 2.5 Gbit/s with extinction ratios exceeding 10 dB. Our approach offers both high-speed, low-power, switching operation and two-dimensional array scalability for the fabrication of chip-scale reconfigurable multichannel wavelength converters. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. @DOI: 10.1063/1.1643539#