On the design of polarization-insensitive optoelectronic devices

We examine theoretically the problem of the polarization dependence of guided-wave devices. We show that tensile-strained quantum wells near the light-and heavy-hole degeneracy provide almost equal absorption spectra and nearly identical electroabsorption curves in the TE and TM modes, which are necessary features for on-line applications such as signal amplification and pulse reshaping in optical fibre telecommunication systems.