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The self-electro-optic effect device (SEED) and the symmetric SEED (S-SEED) have demonstrated considerable applications for photonic switching and logic functionality. A SEED consists of a p-i-n, mesa diode, with a multiple-quantum-well structure for the i region. The symmetric SEED consists of two p-i-n mesa diodes connected in series. The S-SEED has been fabricated in functional arrays containing as many as 32×64 elements. The SEED and S-SEED are operated under a reverse bias, thus low reverse leakage is desired. As the magnitude of the reverse leakage current increases, more incident laser power is required to switch device states and then hold that state. Therefore, understanding the origins of the reverse leakage current and its dependence on mesa and array size is imperative for optimizing device performance.

The forward current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of GaAs/AlGaAs Self Electro-optic Effect Device (SEED) p-i-n diodes were measured. The I-V curves exhibited a diode like behavior with an ideality factor of 2 for voltages in the range 0.5–1.25V. In this region, the diode series resistance varied inverse proportional to the forward current with the constant of proportionality being equal to this voltage drop in the i-region. From an analysis of the experimentally obtained voltage drop, the ambipolar lifetime was determined. For the standard device whose i-region had a multi quantum well structure consisting of 60 periods of 100Å undoped GaAs wells and 65Å undoped Al0.30Ga0.70 As barriers, the ambipolar lifetime was found to be 79.6±3 psec for a 30×30 μm2 mesa device and 92 ± 4 psec for a 100×100 μm2 mesa device. When the barrier width was reduced to 35Å or when the barrier Al composition decreased to 0.2, no significant change in the ambipolar lifetime was measured. Since previous measurements have indicated that decreasing the barrier width or height greatly enhances carrier escape from the wells during the operation of the GaAs/AlGaAs p-i-n diode as a photodetector, it is inferred that the carrier escape and collection times are smaller than ∼ 80–90 psec.