Optoelectronic Devices

2008

Various high-index-contrast sub-wavelength grating (HCG) mirror designs have been investigated. It reveals that transverse magnetic (TM-) and transverse electric (TE-) HCG reflect the incident fields in quite different ways and that the TM-HCG enables very thin gap below the grating. Based on these results, a new HCG VCSEL design with a thin oxide gap has been suggested. The thin oxide gap structure has a number of advantages including easier fabrication, better mechanical stability, and very strong single-mode properties.

SPIE Proceedings, 2017

The use of a high-contrast grating (HCG) as the top mirror in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) allows for setting the resonance wavelength by the grating parameters in a post-epitaxial growth fabrication process. Using this technique, we demonstrate electrically driven multi-wavelength VCSEL arrays at ~980 nm wavelength. The VCSELs are GaAs-based and the suspended GaAs HCGs were fabricated using electron-beam lithography, dry etching and selective removal of an InGaP sacrificial layer. The air-coupled cavity design enabled 4-channel arrays with 5 nm wavelength spacing and sub-mA threshold currents thanks to the high HCG reflectance.

Optics Express, 2016

We demonstrate, for the first time, post-growth wavelength setting of electrically-injected vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) by using high-contrast gratings (HCGs) with different grating parameters. By fabricating HCGs with different duty cycle and period, the HCG reflection phase can be varied, in effect giving different optical cavity lengths for HCG-VCSELs with different grating parameters. This enables fabrication of monolithic multi-wavelength HCG-VCSEL arrays for wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). The GaAs HCG is suspended in air by removing a sacrificial layer of InGaP. Electrically-injected 980-nm HCG-VCSELs with sub-mA threshold currents indicate high reflectivity from the GaAs HCGs. Lasing over a wavelength span of 15 nm was achieved, enabling a 4-channel WDM array with 5 nm channel spacing. A large wavelength setting span was enabled by an air-coupled cavity design and the use of only the HCG as top mirror.

Scientific reports, 2017

Semiconductor-metal subwavelength grating (SMSG) can serve a dual purpose in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), as both optical coupler and current injector. SMSGs provide optical as well as lateral current confinement, eliminating the need for ring contacts and lateral build-in optical and current confinement, allowing their implementation on arbitrarily large surfaces. Using an SMSG as the top mirror enables fabrication of monolithic VCSELs from any type of semiconductor crystal. The construction of VCSELs with SMSGs requires significantly less p-type material, in comparison to conventional VCSELs. In this paper, using a three-dimensional, fully vectorial optical model, we analyse the properties of the stand-alone SMSG in a number of semiconductor materials for a broad range of wavelengths. Integrating the optical model with thermal and electrical numerical models, we then simulate the threshold operation of an exemplary SMSG VCSEL.

2015

High Contrast Grating; VCSELs; CWDM; Optical interconnects We demonstrate post-growth wavelength setting of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) using high-contrast gratings (HCGs). By fabricating HCGs with different duty-cycle and period, the HCG reflection phase can be varied, in effect giving different optical cavity lengths for HCG-VCSELs with different grating parameters. This enables fabrication of monolithic multi-wavelength HCG-VCSEL arrays for wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). The GaAs HCG is suspended in air by selective removal of an InGaP sacrificial layer. Electrically injected 980-nm HCG-VCSELs with sub-mA threshold currents indicate high reflectivity from the GaAs HCGs. Lasing over a wavelength span of 15 nm was achieved, enabling a 4-channel WDM array with 5 nm channel spacing. Device design, fabrication and experimental proof-of-concept are presented.

Optics express, 2010

We propose a novel design for multi-wavelength arrays of vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) using high-contrast gratings (HCGs) as top mirrors. A range of VCSEL cavity wavelengths in excess of 100 nm is predicted by modifying only the period and duty-cycle of the high-contrast gratings, while leaving the epitaxial layer thickness unchanged. VCSEL arrays fabricated with this novel design can easily accommodate the entire Er-doped fiber amplifier bandwidth with emission wavelengths defined solely by lithography with no restrictions in physical layout. Further, the entire process is identical to that of solitary VCSELs, facilitating cost-effective manufacturing.

CLEO: 2014, 2014

We report an electrically pumped hybrid cavity AlGaInAssilicon long-wavelength VCSEL using a high contrast grating (HCG) reflector on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate. The VCSEL operates at silicon transparent wavelengths ~1.57 μm with >1 mW CW power outcoupled from the semiconductor DBR, and single-mode operation up to 65 °C. The thermal resistance of our device is measured to be 1.46 K/mW. We demonstrate >2.5 GHz 3-dB direct modulation bandwidth, and show error-free transmission over 2.5 km single mode fiber under 5 Gb/s direct modulation. We show a theoretical design of SOI-HCG serving both as a VCSEL reflector as well as waveguide coupler for an in-plane SOI waveguide, facilitating integration of VCSEL with in-plane silicon photonic circuits. The novel HCG-VCSEL design, which employs scalable flip-chip eutectic bonding, may enable low cost light sources for integrated optical links.

Optical Materials Express, 2013

A new mid-infrared (MIR) Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) structure is proposed. We have integrated to the VCSEL structure both an oxide aperture for lateral confinement, and a subwavelength high-contrast-grating top mirror. Upon the GaSb-based half-VCSEL, we have grown a metamorphic AlGaAs heterostructure to enable thermal oxidation and grating mirror fabrication steps. A methodology based on optimization and anti-optimization methods has been used to design the optical grating, with improved parameter tolerances regarding processing errors. Finally, we show the complete fabrication of an electrically-pumped MIR monolithic VCSEL structure implementing both oxide confinement and a subwavelength grating top mirror.

IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, 2008

A new vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) structure based on a subwavelength grating mirror and a thin oxide gap is suggested and numerically investigated. The structure is shown to exhibit similar threshold gain, suppression of higher order transverse modes, and polarization stability as a grating-mirror VCSEL reported in the literature based on a thick air gap. The thin oxide gap structure has a number of advantages including easier fabrication, better mechanical stability, and very strong single-mode properties.

Optics Express, 2005

We have theoretically investigated the combined fundamentalmode and polarization selection in 850-nm oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) using a locally etched sub-wavelength surface grating. The physical mechanisms behind the selection are, first, the strongly polarization sensitive effective refractive index of the volume occupied by the grating structure, and second, the dramatic change of the reflectivity of a multi-layer Bragg mirror that can occur by simply changing the refractive index of the outermost layer. For a VCSEL cavity this layer is the surface layer and its refractive index is changed by the introduction of the sub-wavelength grating; in this case the grating leads to a higher reflectivity for the desired polarization. By localizing the surface grating area to a carefully chosen region near the optical axis it is therefore possible to ensure that the fundamental mode experiences a high reflectivity, or low cavity loss, while other modes experience more of the low-reflectance region of the peripheral part of the Bragg mirror and thus suffer higher loss. Cold-cavity calculations on a VCSEL with oxide aperture and grating region diameters of 4.5 µm and 2.5 µm, respectively, indicate that a loss difference of ∼20 cm −1 between the fundamental mode and the first higher order mode can be obtained simultaneously with an orthogonal polarization mode discrimination of >15 cm −1 . Based on previous experience, these values should enable robust single-mode operation with only the desired polarization orientation. What is also important, for the lasing mode the introduction of a sub-wavelength grating has no detrimental effect, so its characteristics, such as threshold current, slope efficiency, and far-field profile are unaffected. Moreover, since the effective index is a result of an averaging over several sub-wavelength grating periods, it is fairly insensitive to the detailed shape of the grating grooves, which should relax the fabrication tolerances.