Fabrication and Characterization of Quantum-Well and Quantum-Dot Metal Cavity Surface-Emitting Nanolasers

Wei, Eric

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/47610 Copy

Description

Title

Fabrication and Characterization of Quantum-Well and Quantum-Dot Metal Cavity Surface-Emitting Nanolasers

Author(s)

Wei, Eric

Contributor(s)

Chuang, Shun Lien

Issue Date

2013-05

Keyword(s)

• semiconductor lasers
• nanolasers
• plasmonics
• nanocavity
• vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

Abstract

Nanolasers have the advantages of low power consumption and ultrahigh density integration for the next generation intrachip optical interconnects. The ultimate goal is to make millions of semiconductor nanolasers on a single chip to perform the functions of transistor integrated circuits. To maintain the optical energy within a nanocavity, metal is used to enhance the optical confinement down to the wavelength scale of photons. Optical gain is achieved through the use of groups of quantum wells, while quantum dot structures are also explored due to their higher differential gain and lower surface recombination. Our fabricated lasers possess a hybrid distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) silver mirror with an active region consisting of InGaAs quantum wells or submonolayer quantum dots surrounded by a silver cavity with a diameter as small as 1 μm. The lasers possess a vertical cavity surface emitting laser structure with over 20 pairs of top and bottom DBR. Our microlasers lase at room temperature by electrical injection for a diameter of 4 μm for continuous wave operation and 1 μm for pulsed operation. To shrink down the cavity size, a structure using 4 top and bottom DBR is investigated for light emission through fabricating light emitting diodes with an aperture of over 100 μm. Further design planning and processing needs to be achieved for lasing at room temperature and electrical injection down to 1 μm. These results give promise to the advent of nanolasers for optical interconnects designed for intrachip data communication.

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/47610

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