A novel polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier structure with large 3dB bandwidth

A novel approach to achieving a polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier is presented. The active layer consists of graded tensile strained bulk-like structure. which can not only enhance TM mode material gain and further realize polarization-insensitivity, but also get a large 3dB bandwidth due to different strain introduced into the active layer. 3dB bandwidth more than 40nm. 65nm has been obtained in die experiment and theory, respectively. The characteristics of such polarization insensitive structure have been analyzed, The influence of the amount of strain and of the thickness of strain layer on the polarization insensitivity has been discussed.

Optical characterization of the Ge/Si (001) islands in multilayer structure

We show that the observed temperature dependence of the photoluminescence (PL) features can be consistently explained in terms of thermally activated carrier transfer processes in a multilayer structure of the self-organized Ge/Si(001) islands. The type II (electron confinement in Si) behavior of the Ge/Si islands is verified. With elevated temperature, the thermally activated electrons and holes enter the Ge islands from the Si and from the wetting layer (WL), respectively. An involvement of the type I (spatially direct) into type II (spatially indirect) recombination transition takes place at a high temperature.

Integrated MMI optical couplers and optical switches in Silicon-on-insulator technology

Integrated multimode interference coupler based on silicon-on-insulator has been become a kind of more and more attractive device in optical systems. Thin cladding layers (<1.0mum) can be used in SOI waveguide due to the large index step between Si and SiO2, making them compatible with the VLSI technology. Here we demonstrate the design and fabrication of multimode interference (MMI) optical couplers and optical switches in SOI technology.

High-speed DFB laser and EMLs

High speed reliable 1.55 mum AlGaInAs multi-quantum well ridge waveguide (RW) DFB laser is developed with a 9GHz -3dB bandwidth. A high speed self aligned constricted mesa 1.55 mum DFB laser is achieved with a 9.1GHz -3dB bandwidth and a more than 20mW output power. A cost effective single RW electroabsorption modulated DFB laser (EMLs) is proposed and successfully fabricated by adopting selective area growth techniques:. a penalty free transmission at 2.5Gbps over 280Km normal G.652 single mode fiber is realized by using this EML as light source. For achieving a better performance EMLs. a gain-coupled DFB laser with etched quantum wells is successfully integrated with a electroabsorption modulator (EAM) for a high single mode yield. the wavelength of a EML is tuned in a 3.2nm range by a integrated thin-film heater for the wavelength routing. a buried heterostructure DFB laser is also successfully integrated with a RW EAM for a lower threshold current. lower EAM parasitic capacitance and higher output power.

16-channel 0.35 mu m CMOS/VCSEL optoelectronic devices

We report some investigations on vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays and VCSEL based optoelectronic smart photonic multiple chip modules (MCM), consisting of 1 x 16 vertical cavity surface emitting laser array and 16-channel lasers driver 0.35 mum CMOS circuit. The hybrid integrated multiple chip modules based on VCSEL operate at more than 2GHz in -3dB frequency bandwidth.

1.3 mu m GaInNAs/GaAs quantum well lasers and photodetectors

The growth of GalnNAs/GaAs quantum well (QW) has been investigated by solid-source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). N was introduced by a dc-active plasma source. Highest N concentration of 2.6% in GaInNAs/GaAs QW was obtained, corresponding to the photoluminescence peak wavelength of 1.57 mum at 10K. The nitrogen incorporation behavior in MBE growth and the quality improvement of the QW have been studied in detail. 1.3 mum GaInNAs/GaAs SQW laser and MQW resonant-cavity enhanced photodetector have been achieved.

Selective intermixing of Ga(In)NAs/GaAs quantum well structures usingSiO(2) encapsulation and rapid thermal annealing

The quantum well intermixing of Ga(In)NAs/GaAs simple quantum well (SQW) using SiO2 encapsulation and rapid thermal annealing has been studied. Obvious enhanced intermixing of GaInNAs/GaAs SQW was observed due to the localized SiO2 capping layer and RTA at temperature between 650degreesC and 900degreesC. The selective intermixing strongly depends on N composition and In composition. An obvious selective intermixing had been found in the samples with small N composition and/or high In composition.

Potential light source for photonic integrated circuits based on the equilateral triangle resonator

The semiconductor microlasers based on the equilateral triangle resonator (ETR) can be fabricated from the edge-emitting laser wafer by dry-etching technique, and the directional emission can be obtained by connecting an output waveguide to one of the vertices of the ETR. We investigate the mode characteristics, especially the mode quality factor, for the ETR with imperfect vertices, which is inevitable in the real technique process. The numerical simulations show that the confined modes can still have a high quality factor in the ETR with imperfect vertices. We can expect that the microlasers is a suitable light source for photonic integrated circuits.

A novel high sensitivity CE-PTHPT for optical fiber communication

Planar punch through heterojunction phototransistors with a novel emitter control electrode and ion- implanted isolation (CE-PTHPT) are investigated. The phototransistors have a working voltage of 3-10V and high sensitivity at low input power. The base of the transistor is completely depleted under operating condition. Base current is zero. The CE-PTHPT has an increased speed and a decreased noise. The novel CE-PTHPT has been fabricated in this paper. The optical gain of GaAlAs/GaAs CE-PTHPT for the incident light power 1.3 and 43nw with the wavelength of 0.8 mu m reached 1260 and 8108. The input noise current calculated is 5.46 x 10(-16) A/H-z(1/2). For polysilicon emitter CE-PTHPT, the optical gain is 3083 at the input power of 0.174 mu w. The optical gain of InGaAs/InP CE-PTHPT reaches 350 for an incident power of 0.3 mu w at the wavelength of 1.55 mu m. The CE-PTHPT detectors is promising as photo detectors for optical fiber communication system.

1.3 mu m GaInNAs/GaAs multiple-quantum-wells resonant-cavity-enhanced photodetectors

A GaInNAs/GaAs multiple quantum well (MQW) resonant-cavity enhanced (RCE) photodetector operating at 1.3 mum with the full-width at half-maximum of 5.5 nm was demonstrated. The GaInNAs RCE photodetector was grown by molecular-beam epitaxy using an ion-removed dc-plasma cell as nitrogen source. GaInNAs/GaAs MQW shows a strong exciton peak at room temperature that is very beneficial for applications in long-wavelength absorption devices. For a 100-mum diameter RCE photodetector, the dark current is 20 and 32 pA at biases of 0 and 6 V, respectively, and the breakdown voltage is -18 V. The measured 3-dB bandwidth is 308 MHz. The reasons resulting in the poor high speed property were analyzed. The tunable wavelength of 18 nm with the angle of incident light was observed.

Long-wavelength Si-based MQW photodetectors for application in optical fiber communication

Si-based SiGe/Si strained MQW long-wavelength photodetectors (PD) with cycle type (Ring Shape) waveguide (CWG) and resonant-cavity-enhanced (RCE) structure have been investigated for the first time for improving the quantum efficiency and response time. The results show that the responsivities are higher than that of conventional PD with a same Ge content reported previously. In addition, RCE-PD has an obvious narrow band response with FWHM less than 6nm.

Design and fabrication of polarization-insensitive 1550 mm semiconductor optical amplifiers

Polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA's) with tensile-strained multi-quantum-wells as actice regions are designed and fabricated. The 6x6 Luttinger-Kohn model and Bir-Pikus Hamiltonian are employed to calculate the valence subband structures of strained quantum wells, and then a Lorentzian line-shape function is combined to calculate the material gain spectra for TE and TM modes. The device structure for polarization insensitive SOA is designed based on the materialde gain spectra of TE and TM modes and the gain factors for multilayer slab waveguide. Based on the designed structure parameters, we grow the SOA wafer by MOCVD and get nearly magnitude of output power for TE and TM modes from the broad-area semiconductor lasers fabricated from the wafer.

Polarization switching current of vertical cavity surface-emitting Lasers in an applied electric field

The polarization of vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) can be controlled by electro-optic birefringence. We calculated the birefringence resulted from external electric field which was imposed on the top DBR of VCSEL by assuming that the two polarization modes were in the same place of the gain spectra in the absence of electric field beginning. By modifying SFM, the affection of the electric field strength on the polarization switching currents between the two polarization modes had been shown.

Silicon: the promising material for phontonic integrated circuits platform

The development of optical network demands integrated arid multiple functionality modules to lowing cost and acquire highly reliability. Among the various contender materials to be photonic integrated circuits platform, silicon exhibits dominant characteristics and is the most promising platform materials. The paper compares the characteristics of some candidate materials with silicon and reviews recent progress in silicon based photonic integration technology. Tile challenges to silicon for optical integration for optical networking application arc also indicated.

Analysis for the angle dependence of GaAs based RCE photodetectors

The theoretical analysis and experimental measurement on the angle dependence of quantum efficiency of GaAs based resonant cavity enhanced (RCE) photodetector is presented. By changing the angle of incoming light, about 40mn wavelength variation of peak quantum efficiency has been experimentally obtained. The peak quantum efficiency and optical bandwidth at different mode corresponding to different angle incidence have been characterized with different absorption dependence on wavelength. The convenient angle tuning of resonant mode will be helpful to relax the strict constraint of RCE photodetector to light source with narrow emission spectrum while especially applied in space optical detections and communications.