Gain-assisted indented plasmonic waveguide for low-threshold nanolaser applications

A subwavelength plasmonic indented waveguide with an active InGaAsP core is proposed.The characteristics of the gap plasmon mode and gain required for lossless propagation are investigated and analyzed by the finite element method.We numerically calculate the normalized mode areas and percentages of energy confined in InGaAsP and metal for plasmonic nanolaser applications.It is shown that the indentation of the sidewalls has an optimal value for which the lasing threshold gain is minimal.The structure could enable low-threshold subwavelength lasing and applications for optoelectronic integrated circuits.

Molecular Beam Epitaxy of Zero Lattice-Mismatch InAs/GaSb Type-Ⅱ Superlattice

Type-Ⅱ InAs/GaSb superlattiees made of 13 InAs monolayers （MLs） and 7 GaSb MLs are grown on GaSb substrates by solid source molecular beam epitaxy. To obtain lattice-matched structures, thin InSb layers are inserted between InAs and GaSb layers. We complete a series of experiments to investigate the influence of the InSb deposition time, Ⅴ/Ⅲ beam-equivalent pressure ratio and interruption time between each layer, and then characterize the superlattice （SL） structures with high-resolution x-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy. The optimized growth parameters are applied to grow the 100-period SL structure, resulting in the full-width half-maximum of 29.55 arcsee for the first SL satellite peak and zero lattice-mismatch between the zero-order SL peak and the GaSb substrate peak.

Room-Temperature Continuous-Wave Operation of InGaN-Based Blue-Violet Laser Diodes with a Lifetime of 15.6 Hours

We report our recent progress of investigations on InGaN-based blue-violet laser diodes （LDs）. The roomtemperature （RT） cw operation lifetime of LDs has extended to longer than 15.6 h. The LD structure was grown on a c-plane free-standing （FS） GaN substrate by metal organic chemical vapor deposition （MOCVD）. The typical threshold current and voltage of LD under RT cw operation are 78 mA and 6.8 V, respectively. The experimental analysis of degradation of LD performances suggests that after aging treatment, the increase of series resistance and threshold current can be mainly attributed to the deterioration of p-type ohmic contact and the decrease of internal quantum efticiency of multiple quantum well （MQW）, respectively.

A 10Gb/s Directly-Modulated 1.3μm InAs/GaAs Quantum-Dot Laser

We demonstrate 10 Gb/s directly-modulated 1.3 μm InAs quantum-dot （QD） lasers grown on GaAs substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. The active region of the QD lasers consists of five-stacked InAs QD layers. Ridge-waveguide lasers with a ridge width of 4 μm and a cavity length of 600 μm are fabricated with standard lithography and wet etching techniques. It is found that the lasers emit at 1293 nm with a very low threshold current of 5 mA at room temperature. Furthermore, clear eye-opening patterns under 10 Gb/s modulation rate at temperatures of up to 50oC are achieved by the QD lasers. The results presented here have important implications for realizing low-cost, low-power-consumption, and high-speed light sources for next-generation communication systems.

High Characteristic Temperature 1.3μm InAs/GaAs Quantum-Dot Lasers Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

We report the molecular beam epitaxy growth of 1.3 μm InAs/GaAs quantum-dot （QD） lasers with high characteristic temperature T0. The active region of the lasers consists of five-layer InAs QDs with p-type modulation doping. Devices with a stripe width of 4 μm and a cavity length of 1200 μm are fabricated and tested in the pulsed regime under different temperatures. It is found that T0 of the QD lasers is as high as 532 K in the temperature range from 10°C to 60°C. In addition, the aging test for the lasers under continuous wave operation at 100°C for 72 h shows almost no degradation, indicating the high crystal quality of the devices.

Effective absorption enhancement in small molecule organic solar cells using trapezoid gratings

We demonstrate that the optical absorption is enhanced in small molecule organic solar cells by using a trapezoid grating structure. The enhanced absorption is mainly attributed to both waveguide modes and surface plasmon modes, which is simulated by using finite-difference time-domain method. The simulated results show that the surface plasmon along the semitransparent metallic Ag anode is excited by introducing the periodical trapezoid gratings, which induce the increase of high intensity field in the donor layer. Meanwhile, the waveguide modes result in a high intensity field in acceptor layer. The increase of field improves the absorption of organic solar cells significantly, which is demonstrated by simulating the electrical properties. The simulated results also show that the short-circuit current is increased by 31% in an optimized device, which is supported by the experimental measurement. Experimental result shows that the power conversion efficiency of the grating sample is increased by 7.7%.

Continuous-Wave Operation of GaN Based Multi-Quantum-Well Laser Diode at Room Temperature

Room-temperature operation of cw GaN based multi-quantum-well laser diodes （LDs） is demonstrated. The LD structure is grown on a sapphire （0001） substrate by metalorganic chemical vapour deposition. A 2.5μm × 800μm ridge waveguide structure is fabricated. The electrical and optical characteristics of the laser diode under direct current injection at room temperature are investigated. The threshold current and voltage of the LD under cw operation are 110mA and 10.5V, respectively. Thermal induced series resistance decrease and emission wavelength red-shift are observed as the injection current is increased. The full width at half maximum for the parallel and perpendicular far field pattern （FFP） are 12° and 32°, respectively.

Design of Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Edge Emitting Laser for Photonic Integrated Circuits

An edge emitting laser based on two-dimensional photonic crystal slabs is proposed. The device consists of a square lattice microcavity, which is composed of two structures with the same period but different radius of air-holes, and a waveguide. In the cavity, laser resonance in the inner structure benefits from not only the anomalous dispersion characteristic of the first band-edge at the M point in the first Brillouin-zone but also zero photon states in the outer structure. A line defect waveguide is introduced in the outer structure for extracting photons from the inner cavity. Three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulations apparently show the in-plane laser output from the waveguide. The microcavity has an effective mode volume of about 3.2（λ/nslab）^3 for oscillation mode and the quality factor of the device including line defect waveguide is estimated to be as high as 1300.

Magnetic plasmon mode resonance and power transmission in a nanosandwich waveguide

The magnetic plasmon （MP） modes in the metal-dielectric-metal nanosandwich structure are investigated nu- merically, and the principle of energy resonance in such a resonator is proposed. An equivalent inductance capacitance circuit analysis method is proposed and the results are in agreement with the numerical simulations. Based on the MP resonance in such a structure, a nanosandwich chain waveguide is designed. Gold and silver are chosen as the metal materials. The power transmission e^ciency of the nanosandwieh waveguide can be as high as 0.546 in a specific nanosandwich unit cell, even when the metal absorption loss is large, which is the perspective of the new waveguides and lasers based on MP modes.

Design of a compact polarization beam splitter based on a deformed photonic crystal directional coupler

In this paper a compact polarization beam splitter based on a deformed photonic crystal directional coupler is designed and simulated. The transverse-electric （TE） guided mode and transverse-magnetic （TM） guided mode are split due to different guiding mechanisms. The effect of the shape deformation of the air holes on the coupler is studied. It discovered that the coupling strength of the coupled waveguldes is strongly enhanced by introducing elliptical airholes, which reduce the device length to less than 18.Sttm. A finite-difference tlme-domain simulation is performed to evaluate the performance of the device, and the extinction ratios for both TE and TM polarized light are higher than 20 dB.

Exploring electromagnetic response of tellurium dielectric resonator metamaterial at the infrared wavelengths

We numerically investigate the electromagnetic properties of tellurium dielectric resonator metamaterial at the infrared wavelengths. The transmission spectra, effective permittivity and permeability of the periodic tellurium metamaterial structure are investigated in detail. The linewidth of the structure in the direction of magnetic field W x has effects on the position and strength of the electric resonance and magnetic resonance modes. With appropriately optimizing the geometric dimensions of the designed structure, the proposed tellurium metamaterial structure can provide electric resonance mode and high order magnetic resonance mode in the same frequency band. This would be helpful to analyze and design low-loss negative refraction index metamaterials at the infrared wavelengths.

Study on tapered crossed subwavelength gratings by Fourier modal method

Fourier modal method incorporating staircase approximation is used to study tapered crossed subwavelength gratings in this paper. Three intuitive formulations of eigenvalue functions originating from the prototype are presented, and their convergences are compared through numerical calculation. One of them is found to be suitable in modeling the diffraction efficiency of the circular tapered crossed subwavelength gratings without high absorption, and staircase approximation is further proven valid for non-highly-absorptive tapered gratings. This approach is used to simulate the ＂moth-eye＂ antireflection surface on silicon, and the numerical result agrees well with the experimental one.

Spontaneous-emission control by local density of states of photonic crystal cavity

The local density of states （LDOS） of two-dimensional square lattice photonic crystal （PhC） defect cavity is studied. The results show that the LDOS in the centre is greatly reduced, while the LDOS at the point off the centre （for example, at the point （0.3a, 0.4a）, where a is the lattice constant） is extremely enhanced. Further, the disordered radii are introduced to imitate the real devices fabricated in our experiment, and then we study the LDOS of PhC cavity with configurations of different disordered radii. The results show that in the disordered cavity, the LDOS in the centre is still greatly reduced, while the LDOS at the point （0.3a, 0.4a） is still extremely enhanced. It shows that the LDOS analysis is useful. When a laser is designed on the basis of the square lattice PhC rod cavity, in order to enhance the spontaneous emission, the active materials should not be inserted in the centre of the cavity, but located at positions off the centre. So LDOS method gives a guide to design the positions of the active materials （quantum dots） in the lasers.

Electronic band structure of a type-II 'W' quantum well calculated by an eight-band k·p model

In this paper, we present an investigation of type-II ＇W＇ quantum wells for the InAs/Ga1-xInxSb/A1Sb family, where ＇W＇ denotes the conduction profile of the material. We focus our attention on using the eight-band k. p model to calculate the band structures within the framework of finite element method. For the sake of clarity, the simulation in this paper is simplified and based on only one period--A1Sb/InAs/Ga1-xInxSb/InAs/A1Sb. The obtained numerical results include the energy levels and wavefunctions of carriers. We discuss the variations of the electronic properties by changing several important parameters, such as the thickness of either InAs or Cal_xInxSb layer and the alloy composition in Ga1-xInxSb separately. In the last part, in order to compare the eight-band k·p model, we recalculate the conduction bands of the ＇W＇ structure using the one-band k·p model and then discuss the difference between the two results, showing that conduction bands are strongly coupled with valence bands in the narrow band gap structure. The in-plane energy dispersions, which illustrate the suppression of the Auger recombination process, are also obtained.

Temperature Compensation for Threshold Current and Slope Efficiency of 1.3μm InAs/GaAs Quantum-Dot Lasers by Facet Coating Design

We demonstrate a technique of temperature compensation for 1.3μm InAs/GaAs quantum-dot(QD)lasers by facet coating design.The key point of the technique is to make sure that the mirror loss of the lasers decreases as the temperature rises.To realize this,we design a type of facet coating by shifting the central wavelength of the facet coating from 1310nm to 1480nm,whose reflectivity increases as the emission wavelength of the lasers red-shifts.Consequently,the laser with the new facet coating exhibits a characteristic temperature doubled in size and a more stable slope efficiency in the temperature range from 10℃to 70℃,compared with the traditional one with a temperature-independent mirror loss.

Single Mode 2 μm GaSb Based Laterally Coupled Distributed Feedback Quantum-Well Laser Diodes with Metal Grating

Room-temperature operation of a GaSh based laterally coupled distributed feedback quantum-well laser diode emitting at 2 μm is demonstrated. The device exhibits single longitudinal mode characteristic as a result of the first order Cr-Bragg gratings alongside the narrow ridge waveguide. We design the laser structure to obtain a critical coupling condition corresponding to a coupling coefficient of 12cm-1. For a I-mm-iong uncoated laser diode with a 3-μm-wide stripe, a single mode output spectrum with side mode suppression ratio as high as 28.5 dB is achieved, and the maximum single mode continuous-wave output power is about 11 mW at room temperature.

Molecular Beam Epitaxy of GaSb on GaAs Substrates with Compositionally Graded LT-GaAsxSb1-x Buffer Layers

We investigate the molecular beam epitaxy growth of GaSb films on GaAs substrates using compositionally graded GaAsxSb1-x buffer layers. Optimization of GaAsxSb1-x growth parameter is aimed at obtaining high GaSb crystal quality and smooth GaSb surface. The optimized growth temperature and thickness of GaAsxSb1-x layers are found to be 420 degrees C and 0.5 mu m, respectively. The smallest full width at half maximum value and the root mean square surface roughness of 0.67nm over 2 x 2 mu m(2) area are achieved as a 250nm GaSb film is grown under optimized conditions.

Effect of substrate temperature on the morphological,structural,and optical properties of RF sputtered Ge(1-x)Snx films on Si substrate

In this study, Ge（1-x）Snx alloy films are co-sputtered on Si（100） substrates using RF magnetron sputtering at different substrate temperatures. Scanning electron micrographs, atomic force microscopy（AFM）, Raman spectroscopy, and x-ray photoemission spectroscopy（XPS） are conducted to investigate the effect of substrate temperature on the structural and optical properties of grown Ge Sn alloy films. AFM results show that RMS surface roughness of the films increases from 1.02 to 2.30 nm when raising the substrate temperature. This increase could be due to Sn surface segregation that occurs when raising the substrate temperature. Raman spectra exhibits the lowest FWHM value and highest phonon intensity for a film sputtered at 140℃. The spectra show that decreasing the deposition temperature to 140℃ improves the crystalline quality of the alloy films and increases nanocrystalline phase formation. The results of Raman spectra and XPS confirm Ge–Sn bond formation. The optoelectronic characteristics of fabricated metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors on sputtered samples at room temperature（RT） and 140℃ are studied in the dark and under illumination. The sample sputtered at 140℃ performs better than the RT sputtered sample.

Large spot size and low-divergence angle operation of 917-nm edge-emitting semiconductor laser with an asymmetric waveguide structure

GaInAs/AlGaAs comprehensive-strained three-quantum-well lasers with asymmetric waveguide are designed and optimized.With this design,the optical field in the transverse direction is extended,and a semiconductor laser with large spot is obtained.For a 300-μm cavity length and 100-μm aperture device under continuous wave（CW） operation,the measured vertical and horizontal far-field divergence angles are 12.2？ and 3.0？,respectively.The slope efficiency is 0.44 W/A and the lasing wavelength is 917 nm.The equivalent transverse spot size is 3 μm for the fundamental transverse mode,which is a sufficiently large value for the purpose of coupling and manipulation of light.

A novel photonic crystal vertical cavity surface emitting laser based on coherent coupling

We demonstrate a novel oxide confined GaAs-based photonic crystal vertical cavity surface emitting laser (PC-VCSEL) operating at a wavelength of 850 nm based on coherent coupling. A ring-shaped light-emitting aperture is added to the conventional PC-VCSEL, and coherent coupling is achieved between the central defect aperture and the ring-shaped light-emitting aperture. Measurements show that under the continuous-wave (CW) injected current of 20 mA, a high power of 2 mW is obtained, and the side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) is larger than 20 dB. The average divergence angle is 4.2° at the current level of 20 mA. Compared with the results ever reported, the divergence angle is reduced.