Room-temperature electro-optic up-conversion via internal photoemission

We describe the fabrication and operation of a device which performs linear optical up-conversion at room temperature. The mechanism for up-conversion is based on internal photoemission from a Schottky contact. We then describe the voltage dependence of this device and interpret it in terms of total energy conservation. Although an AlGaAs/GaAs system is employed here, the functionality is not material-specific and therefore should be widely applicable to different materials systems, such as GaN/InGaN. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.