Program to Development an Optical Transistor and Switch

摘要

The Optical Transistor and Switch, for which concepts and designs were developed under this program, is a device in which a radiation beam of one wavelength is controlled by a beam of a second wavelength. In contrast to other optical transistors and switches, this arrangement keeps the requirements for control and signal independent and thus adds another dimension to design. The basic device provides simply an optical path through a medium which consists of of free three-energy level atoms such as sodium vapor at very low pressures. It provides, with relatively low optical powers, satisfactory switching action and transistor saturation gains of 3-10. A subsequent concept is that of Multistate Optical Transistors based on spectroscopically complementary materials. Very high transistor gains can be achieved with two variations of this concept. However, the higher optical power demand and the stringent requirement of double resonance between two materials are important drawbacks. The third concept is the Quantum Transition Etalon which consists of a Fabry-Perot cavity enclosing the three-level medium. The QTE appears to have substantially the advantages of the two former concepts, but none of their limitations.