Patterned silicon substrates: A common platform for room temperature GaN and ZnO polariton lasers

Abstract

A platform for fabricating polariton lasers operating at room temperature is introduced: nitride-based distributed Bragg reflectors epitaxially grown on patterned silicon substrates. The patterning allows for an enhanced strain relaxation, thereby enabling to stack a large number of crack-free AlN/AlGaN pairs and achieve cavity quality factors of several thousands with a large spatial homogeneity. GaN and ZnO active regions are epitaxially grown thereon, and the cavities are completed with top dielectric Bragg reflectors. The two structures display strong-coupling and polariton lasing at room temperature and constitute an intermediate step in the way towards integrated polariton devices.