Electrically driven nanoisland laser platform

Abstract

As the data traffic continues to increase, lots of energy is consumed at metal wires. To overcome the energy issue, research is continuing on how to connect electronic chips with light. This requires an energy efficient laser source. From such a point of view, photonic crystal lasers have attracted great attention. However, it was limited in reducing energy consumption due to horizontally uniform active media. If one can reduce the active medium size efficiently, the performance of electronic integrated circuits will be greatly improved. In this work, we introduced a nanoisland laser which is capable of controlling the size of the active medium. The nanoisland was placed in a photonic crystal resonator using selective QW etching techniques. To form a photonic circuit, we demonstrated a SAW waveguide coupled nanoisland laser. More than 60% of light was extracted through the waveguide. Next, we proposed an electrically driven nanoisland laser platform. The proposed structure has a thin air layer between the vertical InP slabs, which acts as an insulator so that electrons and holes can be effectively injected into the nanoisland. However, the air layer was collapsed during the fabrication processes. So, we developed a method to realize a mechanically stable structure by photoresist filling.