Carrier relaxation dynamics in an ultrafast all-optical modulator using an intersubband transition

An improvement of an all-optical modulation scheme that utilizes an intersubband transition is proposed and investigated in connection with intersubband carrier relaxation dynamics. N-doped GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells are pumped by an ultrashort (∼120 fs) intersubband-resonant pulse and probed by an interband-resonant white-light continuum. Ultrafast modulation speed of ∼0.4 ps is demonstrated, which is faster than that of the previous scheme by as much as a factor of 10. It is found that a large part of the carriers, which are excited from the first conduction subband to the second conduction subband, transfer to unknown trapping states at a relaxation time that is comparable to that of the pump–pulse duration. The existence of the carrier relaxation path via L valley subbands is strongly suggested as the cause.