Erasure, however, has to be accomplished by non-electrical methods, since the gate electrode is not accessible electrically.
The gate electrode is charged to produce an electric field that controls the conductivity of a "channel" between two terminals, called the source and drain.
The main change in these devices would be the addition of a gate electrode.
Since they are normally on-state, gate electrodes must be negatively biased to hold off-state.
Here, the solution is used as the gate electrode.
A channel surface with a low surface charge is also desired in order to strengthen the effect of potential tuning by gate electrode.
A potential to terminals 11, 12 causes the laser to emit, a negative bias on gate electrode 10 reducing the output intensity.
This gate electrode is often called "gate metal" or "gate conductor".
Applied voltage on the gate electrode controls the amount of charge carriers flowing through the system.
The silicon wafer serves as the gate electrode.