Professor Diana Huffaker. (Image: Cardiff University)
Researchers at Cardiff University (Wales) have created nanolasers, each with a footprint of only 3 × 3 μm, that can be integrated into silicon-on-insulator (SOI) photonic circuits.1 The lasers emit light at 1290 nm that gets channelled into the silicon via 2D gratings in the silicon.
"This is the first demonstration that shows how photonic band-edge lasers can be integrated directly on patterned silicon-on-insulator platforms," says professor Diana Huffaker, scientific director of Cardiff University's Institute for Compound Semiconductors, based at Cardiff University's School of Physics and Astronomy.
The room-temperature lasers, which are based on indium gallium arsenide/indium phosphide (InGaAs/InP) and are fabricated in 9 x 9 arrays, have a cavity quality Q factor of 23,000 and a threshold of 200 μJ cm−2.
"This research will have long-term implications in the rapidly expanding field of photonics, with a particular emphasis on driving commoditization of high volume, high specification optical components for mass market communications and sensing applications," says Wyn Meredith, director of the Compound Semiconductor Centre.
Source: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/1502929-experts-develop-nanolasers-on-silicon
REFERERENCE:
1. Hyunseok Kim et al., Rapid Research Letters (2019); https://doi.org/10.1002/pssr.201800489.
