Room temperature mid-infrared surface-emitting photonic crystal laser on silicon

Abstract

We demonstrate a mid-infrared surface-emitting photonic crystal laser on silicon substrate operating at room temperature. The active region consisting of PbSe/PbSrSe multiple quantum wells was grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Si(111) substrate patterned with a photonic crystal (PC) array. The PC array forms a transverse magnetic polarized photonic bandgap at around 2840 cm−1. Under pulsed optical pumping, room temperature multimode lasing emissions were observed at wavelength ∼3.5 μm with estimated threshold peak pumping intensity of 24 kW/cm2. Angular-dependent measurement indicates the lasing is of a Gaussian-like profile with full width at half maximum of 4.66°.

Mid-infrared integrated photonics on silicon: a perspective

“…Nevertheless, GeSn lasers demonstrated thus far are optically pumped, operate only in pulse mode and at low temperatures, and require large pumping threshold power density in the order of 100 kW/cm 2 . The lead salt lasers are similarly optically pumped and mostly count on free-space external cavities to provide optical feedback (with the only exception of a photonic crystal surface emitting laser [124]). Among these material systems, GaSb-on-Si is probably the most advanced in terms of laser device development, providing electrically pumped CW lasing at room temperature with a wall plug efficiency close to 0.6% [119].…”

Temperature dependent band offsets in PbSe/PbEuSe quantum well heterostructures

“…The confined quantum well states in the valence and conduction bands are analyzed using a k Á p model with envelope function approximation. From the fit of the experimental data, the normalized conduction band offset is determined as 0:4560:15 of the band gap difference, independently of Eu content up to 14% and temperature from 20 to 300 K. Lead salt heterostructures have been extensively used for fabrication of coherent mid-infrared light sources such as buried stripe lasers, 1,2 vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, 3,4 microdisk lasers, 5,6 photonic crystal lasers, 7 as well as external cavity disk lasers with tunable emission and high output powers. [8][9][10][11] In these devices, ternary lead salt alloys with Sr or Eu are usually employed as barriers for the quantum wells (QWs), providing a large tunability of the bands gaps E g as required for band gap engineering.…”

Recent development on the uncooled mid-infrared PbSe detectors with high detectivity

“…D presents diameter of sphere, R 0 is the radius of sphere, dp is size of p-type region and dn is depth of n-type region, D=dp+2*dn. [16] Based on our understanding, the essence of p-type PbSe sensitization process for a high detectivity is (1) to incorporate iodine into PbSe during the iodination process to create CSJ structure, (2) to increase crystal quality by high-temperature recrystallization process, (3) to passivate defects and to introduce oxide layer in the boundary domain by annealing in rich oxygen atmosphere.…”

“…Due to their unique intrinsic physical properties, lead salt semiconductors have been commonly used in various solidstate devices development such as mid-infrared (IR) light emitters and lasers, [1,2] mid-IR detectors, [3] thermoelectric coolers, [4] and solar cells. [5] On the infrared photodetectors applications, lead salt is one of the first semiconductor materials used for military applications in history.…”