High-power operation of uncoated strain-compensated quantum cascade lasers at 4.8 mu m

High-power operation of uncoated 22-mu m-wide quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) emitting at lambda approximate to 4.8 mu m is reported. The emitting region of the QCL structure consists of a 30-period strain-compensated In0.68Ga0.32As/In0.37Al0.63As superlattice. For a 4-mm-long laser in pulsed mode, a peak output power is achieved in excess of 2240mW per facet at 81K with a threshold current density of 0.64kA/cm(2). The effects of varying the cavity lengths from 1 to 4mm on the performances of the QCLs are analysed in detail and the low waveguide loss of only about 1.4 cm(-1) is extracted.

High-speed 2 x 2 silicon-based electro-optic switch with nanosecond switch time

A 2 x 2 electro-optic switch is experimentally demonstrated using the optical structure of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) based on a submicron rib waveguide and the electrical structure of a PIN diode on silicon-on-insulator (SOI). The switch behaviour is achieved through the plasma dispersion effect of silicon. The device has a modulation arm of I mm in length and cross-section of 400 nmx340 nm. The measurement results show that the switch has a V pi L pi figure of merit of 0.145 V-cm and the extinction ratios of two output ports and cross talk are 40 dB, 28 dB and -28 dB, respectively. A 3 dB modulation bandwidth of 90 MHz and a switch time of 6.8 ns for the rise edge and 2.7 ns for the fall edge are also demonstrated.

Design of quantum cascade microcavity lasers based on Q factor versus etching depth

The choice of the etching depth for semiconductor microcavities is a compromise between a high Q factor and a difficult technique in a practical fabricating process. In this paper, the influences of the etching depth on mode Q factors for mid-infrared quantum cascade microcylinder and microsquare lasers around 4.8 and 7.8 mu m are simulated by three-dimensional (3D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) techniques. For the microcylinder and the microsquare resonators, the mode Q factors of the whispering-gallery modes (WGMs) increase exponentially and linearly with the increase in the etching depth, respectively Furthermore, the mode Q factors of some higher order transverse WGMs may be larger than that of the fundamental transverse WGM in 3D microsquares. Based on the field distribution of the vertical multilayer slab waveguide and the mode Q factors versus the etching depth, the necessary etching depth is chosen at the position where the field amplitude is 1% of the peak value of the slab waveguide. In addition, the influences of sidewall roughness on the mode Q factors are simulated for microsquare resonators by 2D FDTD simulation. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America

Compact four-channel reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer using silicon photonic wire

We designed and fabricated a four-channel reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer based on silicon photonic wire waveguide, which is controlled through the thermo-optic effect. The effective footprint of the device is about 1000 x 500 mu m(2). The minimum insertion loss including the transmission loss and coupling loss is about 10.7 dB. The tuning bandwidth is about 17 nm, the average tuning efficiency about 6.11 mW/nm and the tuning speed about 24.5 kHz. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Fabrication and optical optimization of spot-size converters with strong cladding layers

A silicon-on-insulator (SOI) optical fiber-to-waveguide spot-size converter (SSC) overlaid with specially treated silica is investigated for integrated optical circuits. Unlike the conventional process of simply depositing the hot silica on silicon waveguides, two successive layers of silicon dioxide were grown on etched SSC structures by PECVD (plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition). The two layers have 0.8% index contrast and supply stronger cladding for an incident light beam. Additionally, this process is able to reduce the effective refractive index of the input mode to less than 1.47 (extremely close to that of the fiber), substantially weakening the unwanted back reflection. Exploiting this technology, it was demonstrated that the SSC showed a theoretical low mode mismatch loss of 1.23 dB for a TE-like mode and has an experimental coupling efficiency of 66%.

Optical bistability in InP/GaInAsP equilateral-triangle-resonator microlasers

Optical bistability is reported in InP/GaInAsP equilateral-triangle-resonator (ETR) microlasers, which are fabricated by planar technology. For a 30 mu m side ETR microlaser with a 2-mu m-wide output waveguide connected to one of the vertices of the ETR, hysteresis loops are observed for the output power versus the injection current from 215 to 235 K. The laser output spectra are measured in the upper and lower states of the hysteresis loop, which show strong mode competition among transverse modes. The hysteresis loops are demonstrated by two-mode rate equations with asymmetric cross gain saturation and different output efficiencies. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America

Optical properties of aluminum-, gallium-, and indium-doped Bi4Ti3O12 thin films

Undoped and Al-, Ga-, and In-doped Bi4Ti3O12 thin films were prepared on fused quartz substrates by chemical solution deposition. Their microstructures and optical properties were investigated by x-ray diffraction and UV-visible-NIR spectrophotometer, respectively. The optical band-gap energies, Urbach energies, and linear refractive indices of all the films are derived from the transmittance spectrum. Following the single oscillator model, the dispersion parameters such as the average oscillator energy (E-0) and dispersion energy (E-d) are achieved. The energy band gap and refractive indices are found to decrease with introducing the dopants of Al, Ga, and In, which is useful for the band-gap engineering and optical waveguide devices. The refractive index dispersion parameter (E-0/S-0) increases and the chemical bonding quantity (beta) decreases in all the films compared with those of bulk. It is supposed to be caused by the nanosize grains in films. (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI 10.1063/1.3138813]

Equilateral-Triangle and Square Resonator Semiconductor Microlasers

The characteristics of equilateral-triangle resonator (ETR) and square resonator microlasers are reported, which are potential light sources in the photonic integrations. Based on the numerical simulations, we find that high-efficiency directional emission can be achieved for the triangle and square microlasers by directly connecting an output waveguide to the resonators. The electrically injected InP/InGaAsP ETR and square resonator microlasers with a 2-mu m-wide output waveguide were fabricated by standard photolithography and inductively coupled plasma etching techniques. Room-temperature continuous-wave (CW) operations were achieved for the ETR microlasers with the side length from 10 to 30 mu m and the square resonator microlasers with the side length of 20 mu m. The output power versus CW injection current and the laser spectra are presented for an ETR microlaser up to 310 K and a square resonator microlaser to 305 K. The lasing spectra with mode wavelength intervals as that of whispering-gallery-type modes and Fabry-Perot modes are observed for two square lasers, which can lase at low temperature and room temperature, respectively.

Electrically Pumped Room-Temperature Pulsed InGaAsP-Si Hybrid Lasers Based on Metal Bonding

A pulsed InGaAsP-Si hybrid laser is fabricated using metal bonding. A novel structure in which the optical coupling and metal bonding areas are transversely separated is employed to integrate the silicon waveguide with an InGaAsP multi-quantum well distributed feedback structure. When electrically pumped at room temperature, the laser operates with a threshold current density of 2.9 kA/cm(2) and a slope efficiency of 0.02 W/A. The 1542 nm laser output exits mainly from the Si waveguide.

High-performance evanescently-coupled uni-traveling-carrier photodiodes

A new evanescently-coupled uni-traveling-carrier photodiode (EC-UTC PD) based on a multimode diluted waveguide (MDW) structure is fabricated, analysed and characterized. Optical and electrical characteristics of the device are investigated. The excellent characteristics are demonstrated such as a responsivity of 0.36 A/W, a bandwidth of 11.5 GHz and a small-signal 1-dB compression current greater than 18 mA at 10 GHz. The saturation current is significantly improved compared with those of similar evanescently-coupled pin photodiodes. The radio frequency (RF) bandwidth can be further improved by eliminating RF losses induced by the cables, the probe and the bias tee between the photodiode and the spectrum analyzer.

Fabry-Perot microcavity modes observed in the micro-photoluminescence spectra of the single nanowire with InGaAs/GaAs heterostructure

We report on the fabrication of the nanowires with InGaAs/GaAs heterostructures on the GaAs(111) B substrate using selective-area metal organic vapor phase epitaxy. Fabry-Perot microcavity modes were observed in the nanowires with perfect end facets dispersed onto the silicon substrate and not observed in the free-standing nanowires. We find that the calculated group refractive indices only considering the material dispersion do not agree with the experimentally determined values although this method was used by some researchers. The calculated group refractive indices considering both the material dispersion and the waveguide dispersion agree with the experimentally determined values well. We also find that Fabry-Perot microcavity modes are not observable in the nanowires with the width less than about 180 nm, which is mainly caused by their poor reflectivity at the end facets due to their weak confinement to the optical field. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America

Reduced divergence angle of photonic crystal vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser

The reduced divergence angle of the photonic crystal vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (PC-VCSEL) was investigated in both theory and experiment. The photonic crystal waveguide possessed the weakly guiding waveguide characteristic, which accounted for the reduction of the divergence angle. The three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method was used to simulate the designed PC-VCSEL, and a calculated divergence angle of 5.2 degrees was obtained. The measured divergence angles of our fabricated PC-VCSEL were between 5.1 degrees and 5.5 degrees over the entire drive current range, consistent with the numerical results. This is the lowest divergence angle of the fabricated PC-VCSEL ever reported.

1310 nm GaInNAs triple quantum well laser with 13 GHz modulation bandwidth

The emission wavelength of a GaInNAs quantum well (QW) laser was adjusted to 1310 nm, the zero dispersion wavelength of optical fibre, by an appropriate choice of QW composition and thickness and N concentration in the barriers. A triple QW design was employed to enable the use of a short cavity with a small photon lifetime while having sufficient differential gain for a large modulation bandwidth. High speed, ridge waveguide lasers fabricated from high quality material grown by molecular beam epitaxy exhibited a damped modulation response with a bandwidth of 13 GHz.

Chirp-free optical modulation using a silicon push-pull coupling microring

We propose a silicon ring-based optical modulation method to perform chirp-free optical modulations. In this scheme, we locate the light to be modulated at the resonance of the ring and tune the coupling coefficient between the ring and the straight waveguide by using a push-pull coupling structure. The chirp-free phase modulation can be achieved by varying the coupling coefficient in a large range, which can modify the coupling condition of the ring such that the input light experiences an abrupt phase shift of pi at the output. If the coupling coefficient is adjusted in a small range such that the coupling condition of the ring is kept unchanged, only the intensity of the light will be modulated. This leads to chirp-free intensity modulation. Our simulations performed at 10 Gbits/s confirm the feasibility of the proposal. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America

40-Gb/s Low Chirp Electroabsorption Modulator Integrated With DFB Laser

A 40-Gb/s monolithically integrated transmitter containing an InGaAsP multiple-quantum-well electroabsorption modulator (EAM) with lumped electrode and a distributed-feedback semiconductor laser is demonstrated. Superior characteristics are exhibited for the device, such as low threshold current of 20 mA, over 40-dB sidemode suppression ratio at 1550 nm, and more than 30-dB dc extinction ratio when coupled into a single-mode fiber. By adopting a deep ridge waveguide and planar electrode structures combined with buried benzocyclobutene, the capacitance of the EAM is reduced to 0.18 pF and the small-signal modulation bandwidth exceeds 33 GHz. Negative chirp operation is also realized when the bias voltage is beyond 1.6 V.