Abstract
Electrically-pumped lasers directly grown on silicon are key devices interfacing silicon microelectronics and photonics. We report here, for the first time, an electrically-pumped, room-temperature, continuous-wave (CW) and single-mode distributed feedback (DFB) laser array fabricated in InAs/GaAs quantum-dot (QD) gain material epitaxially grown on silicon. CW threshold currents as low as 12 mA and single-mode side mode suppression ratios (SMSRs) as high as 50 dB have been achieved from individual devices in the array. The laser array, compatible with state-of-the-art coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) systems, has a well-aligned channel spacing of 20 0.2 nm and exhibits a record wavelength coverage range of 100 nm, the full span of the O-band. These results indicate that, for the first time, the performance of lasers epitaxially grown on silicon is elevated to a point approaching real-world CWDM applications, demonstrating the great potential of this technology.
Highlights
The ever-growing data volume being transported in today’s on-chip and off-chip networks imposes significant challenges on copper-based interconnects
One promising approach to address this challenge is optical interconnect based on silicon photonics [1,2], which is fast maturing as a viable technology for metro and short-reach data transmission, due to the potential of low-cost, high-yield, and streamlined manufacturing enabled by the mature complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication technology
To analyze the optical spectrum of the silicon-based wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) distributed feedback (DFB) laser array, the finished wafer was first diced into independent bars each containing multiple DFB lasers with varying grating periods, and placed face-up on a 3-axis aligning stage for probe-testing
Summary
The ever-growing data volume being transported in today’s on-chip and off-chip networks imposes significant challenges on copper-based interconnects. Significant efforts have been devoted to produce siliconbased lasers by integrating direct bandgap III-V compound semiconductors with silicon using either hybrid or monolithic methods. The former approach has been proved to be successful in producing III-V lasers and active components on silicon with device performance comparable to those grown on native III-V substrates [611], the monolithic approach based on epitaxial growth, in the longer term, is more desirable when it comes to mass production, for its potential in realizing low-cost, high-yield, and reliable manufacturing processes
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