Abstract
A semiconductor nonlinear Fabry–Perot based on the optical Stark nonlinearity is designed as an optical gate. The device is driven by 1.2 ps light pulses with a spectrum narrower than the transmission resonance peak of the device to allow cascaded operation. One picosecond switching-on and -off times are demonstrated with 5:1 contrast ratio, in single-wavelength operation. Owing to its planar structure and ultrafast switching time, this device is the fastest all-optical gate for monochromatic parallel processing ever reported.