A 271.8 nm deep-ultraviolet laser diode for room temperature operation

Abstract

We present a deep-ultraviolet semiconductor laser diode that operates under current injection at room temperature and at a very short wavelength. The laser structure was grown on the (0001) face of a single-crystal aluminum nitride substrate. The measured lasing wavelength was 271.8 nm with a pulsed duration of 50 ns and a repetition frequency of 2 kHz. A polarization-induced doping cladding layer was employed to achieve hole conductivity and injection without intentional impurity doping. Even with this undoped layer, we were still able to achieve a low operation voltage of 13.8 V at a lasing threshold current of 0.4 A.

Optical Quality and Stimulated Emission of Molecular Beam Epitaxy Grown AlGaN in the Deep Ultraviolet

“…[9][10][11] In contrast, however, the development of AlGaN-based deep UV lasers is much slower, and the majority studies focus on optically pumped AlGaN QW lasers. [12][13][14][15][16][17] It is not until very recently that the electrically pumped AlGaN QW deep UV laser operating at 271.8 nm was achieved, [18] after the clamping of the lasing wavelength at 336 nm for more than one decade. [19,20] Different from MOCVD, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) offers ultra-high vacuum environment that could minimize impurity incorporation, as well as separate controls on the substrate and source temperatures and lower growth rate, which can provide excellent control on the heterointerface properties.…”

“…[ 9–11 ] In contrast, however, the development of AlGaN‐based deep UV lasers is much slower, and the majority studies focus on optically pumped AlGaN QW lasers. [ 12–17 ] It is not until very recently that the electrically pumped AlGaN QW deep UV laser operating at 271.8 nm was achieved, [ 18 ] after the clamping of the lasing wavelength at 336 nm for more than one decade. [ 19,20 ]…”

Boron nitride for excitonics, nano photonics, and quantum technologies

“…Also of interest is the ultra-short emission wavelength at 215 nm which clearly sits at a wavelength substantially shorter than what can be achieved using the ultimate challenger heterostructure based on a gallium plane embedded into AlN barrier layers (235 nm at 8 K) [32]. Although a lot of efforts are at the time being focused towards the 260-270 nm range [33,34] where light absorption by DNA molecules is important, hBN-related devices will be of paramount importance for fully covering the 200-300 nm range for nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) where the UV absorbance is due to transitions of the planar purine and pyrimidine bases (see Figure 1 where the wavelengths that can be attributed to GaN-AlN devices are yellowed while the region of hBN-related ones is greyed) [35]. The detailed analysis of light-matter interaction for DNA in the 200 nm range when the system is photo-perturbed (like for instance under a dense photoexitation) is living its infancy.…”

Growth and Characterization of Nitrogen‐Polar AlGaN/AlN Heterostructure for High‐Electron‐Mobility Transistor

“…to AlGaN. The generation of a 2D hole gas has been confirmed in the AlGaN/AlN superlattice structure with the general þc-plane, and this technique led to the demonstration of a deep ultraviolet laser diode; [26][27][28][29] the generation of a 2DEG using the N-polar (Al)GaN/AlN structure was caused by the inverted structure toward the þc-plane.…”