Wafer-Level Testable High-Speed Silicon Microring Modulator Integrated with Grating Couplers

A wafer-level testable silicon-on-insulator-based microring modulator is demonstrated with high modulation speed, to which the grating couplers are integrated as the fiber-to-chip interfaces. Cost-efficient fabrications are realized with the help of optical structure and etching depth designs. Grating couplers and waveguides are patterned and etched together with the same slab thickness. Finally we obtain a 3-dB coupling bandwidth of about 60nm and 10 Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero modulation by wafer-level optical and electrical measurements.

Indium-Induced Effect on Polarized Electroluminescence from InGaN/GaN MQWs Light Emitting Diodes

Polarization-resolved edge-emitting electroluminescence (EL) studies of InGaN/GaN MQWs of wavelengths from near-UV (390 nm) to blue (468 nm) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are performed. Although the TE mode is dominant in all the samples of InGaN/GaN MQW LEDs, an obvious difference of light polarization properties is found in the InGaN/GaN MQW LEDs with different wavelengths. The polarization degree decreases from 52.4% to 26.9% when light wavelength increases. Analyses of band structures of InGaN/GaN quantum wells and luminescence properties of quantum dots imply that quantum-dot-like behavior is the dominant reason for the low luminescence polarization degree of blue LEDs, and the high luminescence polarization degree of UV LEDs mainly comes from QW confinement and the strain effect. Therefore, indium induced carrier confinement (quantum-dot-like behavior) might play a major role in the polarization degree change of InGaN/GaN MQW LEDs from near violet to blue.

Electrical and optical coupling in an electroabsorption modulator integrated with a DFB laser

Electrical and optical coupling in an electroabsorption (EA) modulator integrated with a distributed feedback (DFB) laser have been investigated. The integrated device is treated as a three-port optoelectronic device with two electrical ports and one optical output port. The scattering parameters of this three-port device have been measured in the designed experiment. The measured results indicate that there exists the electrical coupling between the DFB laser and EA modulator of the integrated light source whenever the current applied to the laser section is below or above the threshold current, and the optical coupling will have stronger influence on the frequency responses than the electrical coupling when the bias current is above the threshold. A small-signal equivalent circuit model for the integrated device is established considering both the electrical and internal optical coupling. Experiments show that the equivalent circuit model is reasonable and the determined element values are correct. Based on the measurement and modeling, the influences of the electrical and optical coupling on the high-frequency responses are investigated and the effective measure to eliminate the additional modulation in the DFB laser are discussed.

Tunable ultra-narrow band-gap of anomalous dispersion photonic crystals

We use the transfer-matrix method to research the band structures in one-dimensional photonic crystals composed of anomalous dispersion material ( saturated atomic cesium vapor). Our calculations show that that type of photonic crystal possesses an ultra-narrow photonic band gap and this band gap is tunable when altering the electron population in the atomic ground state of the anomalous dispersion material by the optical pumping method. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2007.

Measurement of chirp parameter and modulation index of a semiconductor laser based on optical spectrum analysis

A novel and simple method for measuring the chirp parameter, frequency, and intensity modulation indexes of directly modulated lasers is proposed in a small-signal modulation scheme. A graphical approach is presented. An analytical solution to the measurement of low chirp parameters is also given. The measured results agree well with those obtained using the conventional methods.

Effects of rapid thermal annealing on the emission properties of highly uniform self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots emitting at 1.3 mu m

The authors report the effects of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) on the emission properties of highly uniform self-assembled InAs quantum dots (QDs) emitting at 1.3 mu m grown on GaAs substrate by metal organic chemical vapor deposition. Postgrowth RTA experiments were performed under N-2 flow at temperatures ranging from 600 to 900 degrees C for 30 s using GaAs proximity capping. Surprisingly, in spite of the capping, large blueshifts in the emission peak (up to about 380 meV at 850 degrees C) were observed (even at low annealing temperatures) along with enhanced integrated photoluminescence (PL) intensities. Moreover, pronounced peak broadenings occurred at low annealing temperatures (< 700 degrees C), indicating that RTA does not always cause peak narrowing, as is typically observed with traditional QDs with large inhomogeneous PL linewidths. The mechanism behind the large peak blueshift was studied and found to be attributed to the as-grown QDs with large size, which cause a larger dot-barrier interface and greater strain in and near the QD regions, thereby greatly promoting Ga-In intermixing across the interface during RTA. The results reported here demonstrate that it is possible to significantly shift the emission peak of the QDs by RTA without any additional procedures, even at lower annealing temperatures. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.

Analysis of temperature dependence of silicon-on-insulator thermo-optic attenuator

The temperature dependence of silicon-on-insulator thermo-optic attenuators is analysed, which originates from the temperature dependence of characteristics of multimode interference. The attenuator depth and power consumption are independent of temperature while the insertion loss depends on the temperature heavily. The variation of the insertion loss decreases from 4.3 dB to 1 dB as the temperature increases from 273 K to 343 K.

Tunable giant Faraday rotation of exciton in semiconductor quantum wells embedded in a microcavity

The Faraday rotation of an exciton in a GaAs quantum well (QW) embedded in a microcavity is investigated theoretically. The authors find that the Faraday rotation is enhanced remarkably by the microcavity, with a magnitude about two orders of magnitude larger than that of a single QW without microcavity. The Faraday rotation can be tuned by changing the incident angle of the pump and probe lights, or by varying the temperature or an external electric field. With an appropriate detuning between the cavity mode of the pump and probe lights, the Faraday rotation spectrum displays a strongly asymmetric line shape, which can easily be detected experimentally.

Inductively coupled plasma etching of two-dimensional InP/InGaAsP-based photonic crystal

Inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching of InP in Cl-2/BCl3 gas mixtures is studied in order to achieve low-damage and high-anisotropy etching of two-dimensional InP/InGaAsP photonic crystal. The etching mechanisms are discussed and the effect of plasma heating on wafer during etching is analyzed. It is shown that the balance between the undercut originating from plasma heating and the redeposition of sputtering on the side-wall is crucial for highly anisotropic etching, and the balance point moves toward lower bias when the ICP power is increased. High aspect-ratio etching at the DC bias of 203 V is obtained. Eventually, photonic crystal structure with nearly 90 degrees side-wall is achieved at low DC bias after optimization of the gas mixture.

Estimation of frequency response of directly modulated lasers from optical spectra

A simple method for estimating the frequency responses of directly modulated lasers from optical spectra is presented. The frequency-modulation index and intensity-modulation index of a distributed feedback laser can be obtained through the optical spectrum analyses. The main advantage is that the measurement setup is very simple. Only a microwave source and an optical spectrum analyser are needed and there is no need to use a calibrated broadband photodetector. Experiment shows that the proposed method is as accurate as the swept frequency method using a network analyzer and is applicable to a wide range of modulation powers.

Design of two-dimensional photonic crystal edge emitting laser for photonic integrated circuits

An edge emitting laser based on two-dimensional photonic crystal slabs is proposed. The device consists of a square lattice microcavity, which is composed of two structures with the same period but different radius of air-holes, and a waveguide. In the cavity, laser resonance in the inner structure benelits from not only the anomalous dispersion characteristic of the first band-edge at the M point in the first Brillouin-zone but also zero photon states in the outer structure. A line defect waveguide is introduced in the outer structure for extracting photons from the inner cavity. Three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulations apparently show the in-plane laser output from the waveguide. The microcavity has an effective mode volume of about 3.2(lambda/eta(slab))(3) for oscillation -mode and the quality factor of the device including line defect waveguide is estimated to be as high as 1300.

Probing deep level centers in GaN epilayers with variable-frequency capacitance-voltage characteristics of Au/GaN Schottky contacts

Under identical preparation conditions, Au/GaN Schottky contacts were prepared on two kinds of GaN epilayers with significantly different background electron concentrations and mobility as well as yellow emission intensities. Current-voltage (I-V) and variable-frequency capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics show that the Schottky contacts on the GaN epilayer with a higher background carrier concentration and strong yellow emission exhibit anomalous reverse-bias I-V and C-V characteristics. This is attributed to the presence of deep level centers. Theoretical simulation of the low-frequency C-V curves leads to a determination of the density and energy level position of the deep centers. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.

GaAs absorber grown at low temperature used in passively Q-switched diode pumped solid state laser

We report, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, on a passively Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser with a GaAs absorber grown at low temperature (LT) by metal organic vapor phase expitaxy. Using the LT GaAs absorber as well as an output coupler, a passively Q-switched laser whose pulse duration is as short as 90 ns, was obtained.

Improved surface morphology of stacked 1.3 mu m InAs/GaAs quantum dot active regions by introducing annealing processes

The authors report a simple but effective way to improve the surface morphology of stacked 1.3 mu m InAs/GaAs quantum dot (QD) active regions grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), in which GaAs middle spacer and top separate confining heterostructure (SCH) layers are deposited at a low temperature of 560 degrees C to suppress postgrowth annealing effect that can blueshift emission wavelength of QDs. By introducing annealing processes just after depositing the GaAs spacer layers, the authors demonstrate that the surface morphology of the top GaAs SCH layer can be dramatically improved. For a model structure of five-layer QDs, the surface roughness with the introduced annealing processes (IAPs) is reduced to about 1.3 nm (5x5 mu m(2) area), much less than 4.2 nm without the IAPs. Furthermore, photoluminescence measurements show that inserting the annealing steps does not induce any changes in emission wavelength. This dramatic improvement in surface morphology results from the improved GaAs spacer surfaces due to the IAPs. The technique reported here has important implications for realizing stacked 1.3 mu m InAs/GaAs QD lasers based on MOCVD.

Influence of indium-tin-oxide thin-film quality on reverse leakage current of indium-tin-oxide/n-GaN Schottky contacts

Indium-tin-oxide (ITO)/n-GaN Schottky contacts were prepared by e-beam evaporation at 200 degrees C under various partial pressures of oxygen. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy and positron beam measurements were employed to obtain chemical and structural information of the deposited ITO films. The results indicated that the observed variation in the reverse leakage current of the Schottky contact and the optical transmittance of the ITO films were strongly dependent on the quality of the ITO film. The high concentration of point defects at the ITO-GaN interface is suggested to be responsible for the large observed leakage current of the ITO/n-GaN Schottky contacts. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.