Microdisk Lasers Research Articles

Directional Laser from Solution‐Grown Grating‐Patterned Perovskite Single‐Crystal Microdisks

AbstractSolution‐processed, high‐gain, and wavelength‐tunable perovskite single‐crystal microdisk (PVKsc‐MD) lasers have emerged as prospective coherent light sources in advanced nanophotonic designs. However, the inevitable multi‐directional emission from a highly symmetrical cavity leads to low light collection efficiency which greatly hinders its application in integrated optical circuits. Here, we report on surface‐patterned MAPbBr3 PVKsc‐MDs synthesized by a cost‐efficient bottom‐up solution process employing spin‐coating and confined‐growth nanoimprinting. The patterned microdisks have high crystal quality with regular shape and sharp edges and nano‐grating structure on the upper surface. This straightforward process yields surface‐patterned PVKsc‐MD lasers with a low lasing threshold and high quality (Q) factor. In addition, the grating structure patterned on the PVKsc‐MDs reduces the original symmetry of the laser cavity, which improves the emission directionality four times.

Improvement of thermal resistance in InGaAs/GaAs/AlGaAs microdisk lasers bonded onto silicon

Epi-side down bonding on a silicon substrate of AlGaAs/GaAs microdisk lasers is presented. A heterostructure with coupled large optical cavities enables location of an InGaAs quantum dot active region at a distance of ∼1 µm from the heterostructure surface. The thermal resistance was reduced to 0.2 and 0.1 K mW−1 for disks of 30 and 50 µm in diameter, respectively. The maximum continuous-wave power limited by the thermal rollover is more than doubled after bonding.

Optically pumped low-threshold microdisk lasers on a GeSn-on-insulator substrate with reduced defect density

Despite the recent success of GeSn infrared lasers, the high lasing threshold currently limits their integration into practical applications. While structural defects in epitaxial GeSn layers have been identified as one of the major bottlenecks towards low-threshold GeSn lasers, the effect of defects on the lasing threshold has not been well studied yet. Herein, we experimentally demonstrate that the reduced defect density in a GeSn-on-insulator substrate improves the lasing threshold significantly. We first present a method of obtaining high-quality GeSn-on-insulator layers using low-temperature direct bonding and chemical–mechanical polishing. Low-temperature photoluminescence measurements reveal that the reduced defect density in GeSn-on-insulator leads to enhanced spontaneous emission and a reduced lasing threshold by ∼ 10 times and ∼ 6 times, respectively. Our result presents a new path towards pushing the performance of GeSn lasers to the limit.

Low Threshold GaN-Based Microdisk Lasers on Silicon With High Q Factor

III-nitride-based microdisk lasers on Si offer the potential in large-scale monolithic Si-based photonic integrated circuits. Here, we demonstrate a new approach to fabricating III-nitride microdisk lasers on Si, which can avoid the problem of low crystal quality and large thickness in traditional Si-based photonic devices. The III-nitride membrane was grown on a sapphire substrate and then transferred to Si to fabricate the microdisk lasers; and an airgap undercut structure was realized by simply wet etching of a SiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> sacrificial layer. Devices fabricated by this method are free from the defect-rich layers that are unavoidable when grown directly on Si, resulting in a high quality (Q) value of 12543 at 412.9 nm. Room temperature lasing was demonstrated with a threshold energy density as low as 33.6 μJ/cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> . The whispering gallery mode oscillation was clearly observed and the model behavior was systematically investigated.

Electrically injected GaN-on-Si blue microdisk laser diodes.

III-nitride blue microdisk laser diodes are highly desirable in emerging applications, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and visible light communication. However, the electrically pumped blue microdisk lasers have been lagging for decades owing to weak optical confinement and large internal absorption loss. In this study, the waveguide layers and cladding layers were carefully engineered to enhance the optical confinement and reduce internal absorption loss. Therefore, the first electrically injected blue microdisk laser diodes grown on Si substrates have been successfully fabricated, and exhibited a resistor-capacitance-limited bandwidth of 24.1 GHz, showing highly promising applications in high-speed and large-modulation-bandwidth visible light communication.

Dual-wavelength switchable single-mode lasing from a lanthanide-doped resonator

The development of multi-wavelength lasing, particularly with the wavelength tuning in a wide spectral range, is challenging but highly desirable for integrated photonic devices due to its dynamic switching functionality, high spectral purity and contrast. Here, we propose a general strategy, that relies on the simultaneous design on the electronic states and the optical states, to demonstrate dynamically switchable single-mode lasing spanning beyond the record range (300 nm). This is achieved through integrating the reversely designed nanocrystals with two size-mismatched coupled microcavities. We show an experimental validation of a crosstalk-free violet-to-red single-mode behavior through collective control of asymmetric excitation and excitation wavelength. The single-mode action persists for a wide power range, and presents significant enhancement when compared with that in the microdisk laser. These findings enlighten the reverse design of luminescent materials. Given the remarkable doping flexibility, our results may create new opportunities in a variety of frontier applications.

Red-Shifted Excitation and Two-Photon Pumping of Biointegrated GaInP/AlGaInP Quantum Well Microlasers.

Biointegrated intracellular microlasers have emerged as an attractive and versatile tool in biophotonics. Different inorganic semiconductor materials have been used for the fabrication of such biocompatible microlasers but often operate at visible wavelengths ill-suited for imaging through tissue. Here, we report on whispering gallery mode microdisk lasers made from a range of GaInP/AlGaInP multi-quantum well structures with compositions tailored to red-shifted excitation and emission. The selected semiconductor alloys show minimal toxicity and allow the fabrication of lasers with stable single-mode emission in the NIR (675–720 nm) and sub-pJ thresholds. The microlasers operate in the first therapeutic window under direct excitation by a conventional diode laser and can also be pumped in the second therapeutic window using two-photon excitation at pulse energies compatible with standard multiphoton microscopy. Stable performance is observed under cell culturing conditions for 5 days without any device encapsulation. With their bio-optimized spectral characteristics, low lasing threshold, and compatibility with two-photon pumping, AlGaInP-based microlasers are ideally suited for novel cell tagging and in vivo sensing applications.

On-chip ytterbium-doped lithium niobate microdisk lasers with high conversion efficiency.

Integrated optical systems based on lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) have attracted the interest of researchers. Recently, erbium-doped LNOI lasers have been realized. However, the reported lasers have a relatively lower conversion efficiency and only operate in the 1550 nm band. In this paper, we demonstrate an LNOI laser operating in the 1060 nm band based on a high Q factor ytterbium-doped LNOI microdisk cavity. The threshold and the conversion efficiency of the laser are 21.19 µW and 1.36%, respectively. To our knowledge, the conversion efficiency is the highest among the reported rare-earth-doped LNOI lasers. This research extends the operating band of LNOI lasers and shows the potential in realizing high-power LNOI lasers.

An Investigation of the Sensitivity of a Microdisk Laser to a Change in the Refractive Index of the Environment

An Investigation of the Sensitivity of a Microdisk Laser to a Change in the Refractive Index of the Environment

Increasing the Optical Power of InGaAs/GaAs Microdisk Lasers Transferred to a Silicon Substrate by Thermal Compression

Increasing the Optical Power of InGaAs/GaAs Microdisk Lasers Transferred to a Silicon Substrate by Thermal Compression

Two-state lasing in injection microdisks with InAs/InGaAs quantum dots

Spectral dependencies of the electroluminescence intensity of a microdisk laser with a diameter of 31 μm with active region based on InAs/InGaAs quantum dots, operating in the continuous-wave regime, are investigated in a wide range of injection currents. Simultaneous lasing through the ground and excited states of quantum dots under intense excitation is demonstrated in injection microdisk laser for the first time. At low pumping powers lasing occurs via ground states of quantum dots only. Keywords: microlaser, quantum dots, two-state lasing, ground state, excited state.

Двухуровневая лазерная генерация в инжекционных микродисках на основе квантовых точек InAs/InGaAs

Spectral dependencies of the electroluminescence intensity of microdisk laser with a diameter of 31 µm with active region based on InAs/InGaAs quantum dots, operating in a continuous-wave regime, are investigated in a wide range of injection currents. Simultaneous lasing through the ground and excited states of quantum dots under intense excitation is demonstrated in injection microdisk laser for the first time. At low pumping powers lasing occurs via ground states of quantum dots only.

Electro-optically tunable microdisk laser on Er3+-doped lithium niobate thin film

We report an electro-optically (EO) tunable microdisk laser fabricated on the erbium (Er3+)-doped lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) substrate. By applying a variable voltage on a pair of integrated chromium (Cr) microelectrodes fabricated near the LNOI microdisk, electro-optic modulation with an effective resonance-frequency tuning rate of 2.6 GHz/100 V has been achieved. This gives rise to a tuning range of 45 pm when the electric voltage is varied between −200 V and 200 V.

Progress in Germanium Tin (GeSn) Photonic Crystal Lasers

We report on lasing in two types of Germanium-Tin (GeSn) photonic crystal lasers, with band-edge and H4 hexagonal cavities. A GeSn 16&#x0025; step-graded structure was used as the optical gain material. The strong out-of-plane emission observed in the band-edge cavity was attributed to the thick optical gain layer, in addition with the presence of leaky band-edge modes above the light cones and a high photonic density of states. The maximum lasing temperature in both types of photonic crystal lasers, 180 K, was lower than in a micro-disk laser fabricated from the same stack, i.e., 230 K. Meanwhile, the lasing thresholds at low temperature (15 K) were very similar (120 kW&#x002F;cm² for a band-edge cavity and 140 kW&#x002F;cm² for a H4 cavity, to be compared with 134 kW&#x002F;cm² for a micro-disk cavity). Since the injected carrier density is governed by the pump power, we suggest the strong variation of optical gain at low temperature, for a small variation of injected carrier density, as a possible cause of such a phenomenon.

Dynamic characteristics and noise modelling of directly modulated quantum well-dots microdisk lasers on silicon

The small-signal amplitude modulation, threshold, and spectral characteristics of microdisk lasers with InGaAs/GaAs quantum well-dots active region were studied jointly with the spectral and threshold parameters of edge-emitting lasers made from the same epitaxial heterostructure. Using the obtained material parameters, the relative intensity noise of the microdisk lasers was calculated as a function of the bias current and side-mode suppression ratio. It is shown that the integral noise is low enough for error-free optical data transmission with the maximum possible bitrate limited by the microdisk modulation bandwidth, if the bias current is above 1.7× threshold current (for side mode suppression ratio > 20 dB).

Influence of dielectric overlayers on self-heating of a microdisk laser

We studied experimentally and numerically self-heating of a microdisk laser developed in the AlGaInAs material system and covered with dielectric layers. By experiments, we found that planarization of the microlaser with SU-8 photoresist significantly (almost, 2-fold) decreases the microlaser thermal resistance. Calculations demonstrate that a downward heat flux through the substrate to the heat sink is a dominant way of heat dissipation, and upward convection is much less relevant. Also, the calculations showed that covering microlaser with a TiO2 layer barely affects microdisk temperature but decreases heat localization in the structure.

Temperature stability of small-signal modulation response of WGM microlasers with InGaAs/GaAs quantum well-dots in the active region

In this paper, results are presented on III-V quantum well dot microring diode lasers tested at elevated temperatures. To the best of our knowledge, the first uncooled microdisk lasers with diameter of 40 μm with 3-dB bandwidth above 2 GHz at 55°C are demonstrated.

Output power of multilayered InGaAs/GaAs quantum well-dot microdisk lasers

We studied the output optical power of microdisk lasers with InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots active region. An increase in the number of layers in the active region in the waveguide from 2 to 6 leads to increase in the peak output optical power due probably to increase of the gain. We also observe a corresponding increase of the threshold current due to the increase on the transparence current. The maximal optical power is achieved for structure with 6 layers at approximately 60 mA injection current. Further increase of the number of the QD layers to 10 results in increase of the threshold current and sudden drop of the output power.

On-chip light detection using integrated microdisk laser and photodetector bonded onto Si board

Characteristics of a compact III–V optocoupler heterogeneously integrated on a silicon substrate and formed by a 31 µm in diameter microdisk (MD) laser with a closely-spaced 50 µm × 200 µm waveguide photodetector are presented. Both optoelectronic devices were fabricated from the epitaxial heterostroctructures with InGaAs/GaAs quantum well-dot layers. The measured dark current density of the photodetector was as low as 2.1 µA cm−2. The maximum link efficiency determined as the ratio of the photodiode photocurrent increment to the increment of the microlaser bias current was 1%–1.4%. The developed heterogeneous integration of III–V devices to silicon boards by Au-Au thermocompression bonding is useful for avoiding the difficulties associated with III–V epitaxial growth on Si and facilitates integration of several devices with different active layers and waveguides. The application of MD lasers with their lateral light output is promising for simplifying requirements for optical loss at III–V/Si interface.

Enhanced GeSn Microdisk Lasers Directly Released on Si

AbstractGeSn alloys are promising candidates for complementary metal‐oxide‐semiconductor‐compatible, tunable lasers. Relaxation of residual compressive strain in epitaxial GeSn has recently shown promise in improving the lasing performance. However, the suspended device configuration that is thus far introduced to relax the strain is destined to limit heat dissipation, thus hindering the device performance. Herein is demonstrated that strain‐free GeSn microdisk laser devices fully released on Si outperform the canonical suspended devices. This approach allows to simultaneously relax the limiting compressive strain while offering excellent thermal conduction. Optical simulations confirm that, despite a relatively small refractive index contrast between GeSn and Si, optical confinement in strain‐free GeSn optical cavities on Si is superior to that in conventional strain‐free GeSn cavities suspended in the air. Moreover, thermal simulations indicate a negligible temperature increase in the device. Conversely, the temperature in the suspended devices increases substantially reaching, for instance, 120 K at a base temperature of 75 K under the employed optical pumping conditions. Such improvements enable increasing the operation temperature by ≈40 K and reducing the lasing threshold by 30%. This approach lays the groundwork to implement new designs in the quest for room temperature GeSn lasers on Si.