Abstract
The realization of silicon-based light sources has been the subject of a major research and development effort worldwide. Such sources may help make integrated photonic and electronic circuitry more cost-effective, with higher performance and greater energy efficiency. The hybrid approach, in which silicon is integrated with a III–V gain medium, is an attractive route in the development of silicon lasers because of its potential for high efficiency. Hybrid lasers with good performance have been reported that are fabricated by direct growth or direct wafer-bonding of the gain medium to silicon. Here, we report a membrane reflector surface-emitting laser on silicon that is based on multilayer semiconductor nanomembrane stacking and a stamp-assisted transfer-printing process. The optically pumped laser consists of a transferred III–V InGaAsP quantum-well heterostructure as the gain medium, which is sandwiched between two thin, single-layer silicon photonic-crystal Fano resonance membrane reflectors. We also demonstrate high-finesse single- or multiwavelength vertical laser cavities.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by US AFOSR STTR programmes FA9550-09-C-0200 and FA9550-11-C-0026 and by US ARO (W911NF-09-1-0505). The silicon nanomembrane work was partially supported by an AFOSR MURI programme (FA9550-08-1-0337), and the initial membrane reflector work was supported by DARPA YFA (HR80011-08-1-0058). The AFOSR programme manager is G. Pomrenke and the ARO programme manager is M. Gerhold. The authors also acknowledge help and support from R. Soref, Z. Qiang, S. Fan, J. A. Rogers, S. Wang, R. Li, T. Saha, H. Mi and G. Gui on this project.
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H.Y., S.C., Y.S., Z.M. and W.Z. contributed to device fabrication. D.Z., Z.M. and W.Z. contributed to device design. W.Y., J.S., S.C., Z.M. and W.Z. contributed to nanomembrane transfer printing. H.Y., D.Z., S.C., Z.M. and W.Z. contributed to device characterization. J.B. and M.H. contributed to InGaAsP quantum well epitaxial growth. Z.M. and W.Z. guided the project. H.Y., D.Z., Z.M. and W.Z. wrote the paper.
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Yang, H., Zhao, D., Chuwongin, S. et al. Transfer-printed stacked nanomembrane lasers on silicon. Nature Photon 6, 615–620 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.160
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.160
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