Ultrafast modulation of semiconductor lasers through a terahertz field

We demonstrate, by means of numerical simulation, an interesting mechanism to modulate and switch semiconductor lasers at THz and sub-THz frequency rates. A sinusoidal terahertz field applied to a semiconductor laser heats the electron-hole plasma and consequently modifies the optical susceptibility. This allows an almost linear modulation of the output power of the semiconductor laser and leads to a faithful reproduction of the terahertz-field waveform in the emitted laser intensity.