Blue Microlasers Integrated on a Photonic Platform on Silicon

Abstract

The main interest of group-III-nitride nanophotonic circuits is the integration of active structures and laser sources. A photonic platform of group-III-nitride microdisk lasers integrated on silicon and emitting in the blue spectral range is demonstrated. The active microdisks are side-coupled to suspended bus waveguides, and the coupled emission is guided and outcoupled to free space using grating couplers. A small gap size of less than 100 nm between the disk and the waveguide is required in the blue spectral range for optimal evanescent coupling. To avoid reabsorption of the microdisk emission in the waveguide, the quantum wells are etched away from the waveguide. Under continuous-wave excitation, loaded quality factors greater than 2000 are observed for the whispering gallery modes for devices with small gaps and large waveguide bending angles. Under pulsed excitation conditions, lasing is evidenced for 3 $\mu$m diameter microdisks integrated in a full photonic circuit. We thus present a first demonstration of a III-nitride microlaser coupled to a nanophotonic circuit.

References in corpus (3)

• Aluminum nitride as a new material for chip-scale optomechanics and nonlinear optics
• Second harmonic generation in phase matched aluminum nitride waveguides
• High Q micro-ring resonators fabricated from polycrystalline aluminum nitride films for near infrared and visible photonics

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Analysis of low-threshold optically pumped III-nitride microdisk lasers
• Monolithic integration of ultraviolet microdisk lasers into photonic circuits in a III-nitride-on-silicon platform
• III-nitride on silicon electrically injected microrings for nanophotonic circuits
• Demonstration of critical coupling in an active III-nitride microdisk photonic circuit on silicon
• Dynamical analysis of modal coupling in rare-earth whispering gallery mode micro-lasers