Continuous wave terahertz detection using 1550 nm pumped nonlinear photoconductive GaAs metasurfaces.

Terahertz (THz) continuous wave (CW) spectroscopy systems can offer extremely high spectral resolution over the THz band by photo-mixing high-performance telecommunications-band (1530-1565 nm) lasers. However, typical THz CW detectors in these systems use narrow band-gap photoconductors, which require elaborate material growth and generate relatively large detector noise. Here we demonstrate that two-step photon absorption in a nano-structured low-temperature grown GaAs (LT-GaAs) metasurface which enables switching of photoconductivity within approximately one picosecond. We show that LT-GaAs can be used as an ultrafast photoconductor in CW THz detectors despite having a bandgap twice as large as the telecommunications laser photon energy. The metasurface design harnesses Mie modes in LT GaAs resonators, whereas metallic electrodes of THz detectors can be designed to support an additional photonic mode, which further increases photoconductivity at a desired wavelength.

Distortion-free amplification of 100†GHz mode-locked optical frequency comb using quantum dot technology.

Semiconductor mode-locked optical frequency comb (ML-OFC) sources with extremely high repetition rates are central to many high-frequency applications, such as dense wavelength-division multiplexing. Dealing with distortion-free amplification of ultra-fast pulse trains from such ML-OFC sources in high-speed data transmission networks requires the deployment of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) with ultrafast gain recovery dynamics. Quantum dot (QD) technology now lies at the heart of many photonic devices/systems owing to their unique properties at the O-band, including low alpha factor, broad gain spectrum, ultrafast gain dynamics, and pattern-effect free amplification. In this swork, we report on ultrafast and pattern-free amplification of ∼100 GHz pulsed trains from a passively ML-OFC and up to 80 Gbaud/s non-return-to-zero (NRZ) data transmission using an SOA. Most significantly, both key photonic devices presented in this work are fabricated from identical InAs/GaAs QD materials operating at O-band, which paves the way for future advanced photonic chips, where ML-OFCs could be monolithically integrated with SOAs and other photonic components, all originated from the same QD-based epi-wafer.

InP integrated optical frequency comb generator using an amplified recirculating loop.

A novel realisation of photonically integrated optical frequency comb generation is demonstrated on indium phosphide (InP) using a generic foundry platform. The architecture, based on the amplified recirculating loop technique, consists of cascaded electro-optic phase modulators embedded within a short waveguide loop. While an injected continuous wave laser signal is recirculated by the loop, the modulators are driven with a modulation frequency corresponding to the round-trip loop length frequency. This results in many phase coherent, evenly spaced optical comb lines being generated. The choice of InP as an integration platform allows immediate optical amplification of the modulated signal by embedded semiconductor optical amplifiers, enabling loop losses to be compensated and expanding the comb across broad optical bandwidths. This approach reduces the requirement for external, high-power optical amplifiers, improving the compactness and power efficiency of the full system. The system was modelled to identify off-resonance behaviour, outlining limits in matching both the modulation frequency and seed laser frequency to the round-trip loop frequency for optimal comb line generation to be achieved. The experimental device occupied a fraction of the 6 x 2 mm2 InP chip and operated at round-trip loop frequencies of 6.71 GHz to produce 59 comb lines within a 20 dB power envelope. All comb lines exhibited strong phase coherence as characterised by low composite phase noise measurements of -105 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz. A second device is also presented with a shorter loop length operating at ∼10 GHz which generated 57 comb lines. Both loop configurations included short waveguide phase shifters providing a degree of tunability of the free spectral range with a tuning range of 150 MHz for small injection currents of < 2.5 mA.

Electrically pumped continuous-wave O-band quantum-dot superluminescent diode on silicon.

High-power, broadband quantum-dot (QD) superluminescent diodes (SLDs) are ideal light sources for optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging systems but have previously mainly been fabricated on native GaAs- or InP-based substrates. Recently, significant progress has been made to emigrate QD SLDs from native substrates to silicon substrates. Here, we demonstrate electrically pumped continuous-wave InAs QD SLDs monolithically grown on silicon substrates with significantly improved performance thanks to the achievement of a low density of defects in the III-V epilayers. The fabricated narrow-ridge-waveguide device exhibits a maximum 3 dB bandwidth of 103 nm emission spectrum centered at the O-band together with a maximum single facet output power of 3.8 mW at room temperature. The silicon-based SLD has been assessed for application in an OCT system. Under optimized conditions, a predicted axial resolution of ∼5.3µm is achieved with a corresponding output power of 0.66 mW/facet.

High performance waveguide uni-travelling carrier photodiode grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy.

The first waveguide coupled phosphide-based UTC photodiodes grown by Solid Source Molecular Beam Epitaxy (SSMBE) are reported in this paper. Metal Organic Vapour Phase Epitaxy (MOVPE) and Gas Source MBE (GSMBE) have long been the predominant growth techniques for the production of high quality InGaAsP materials. The use of SSMBE overcomes the major issue associated with the unintentional diffusion of zinc in MOVPE and gives the benefit of the superior control provided by MBE growth techniques without the costs and the risks of handling toxic gases of GSMBE. The UTC epitaxial structure contains a 300 nm n-InP collection layer and a 300 nm n++-InGaAsP waveguide layer. UTC-PDs integrated with Coplanar Waveguides (CPW) exhibit 3 dB bandwidth greater than 65 GHz and output RF power of 1.1 dBm at 100 GHz. We also demonstrate accurate prediction of the absolute level of power radiated by our antenna integrated UTCs, between 200 GHz and 260 GHz, using 3d full-wave modelling and taking the UTC-to-antenna impedance match into account. Further, we present the first optical 3d full-wave modelling of waveguide UTCs, which provides a detailed insight into the coupling between a lensed optical fibre and the UTC chip.

5 Gbps wireless transmission link with an optically pumped uni-traveling carrier photodiode mixer at the receiver.

We report the first demonstration of a uni-traveling carrier photodiode (UTC-PD) used as a 5 Gbps wireless receiver. In this experiment, a 35.1 GHz carrier was electrically modulated with 5 Gbps non-return with zero on-off keying (NRZ-OOK) data and transmitted wirelessly over a distance of 1.3 m. At the receiver, a UTC-PD was used as an optically pumped mixer (OPM) to down-convert the received radio frequency (RF) signal to an intermediate frequency (IF) of 11.7 GHz, before it was down-converted to the baseband using an electronic mixer. The recovered data show a clear eye diagram, and a bit error rate (BER) of less than 10-8 was measured. The conversion loss of the UTC-PD optoelectronic mixer has been measured at 22 dB. The frequency of the local oscillator (LO) used for the UTC-PD is defined by the frequency spacing between the two optical tones, which can be broadly tuneable offering the frequency agility of this photodiode-based receiver.

Optical comb for generation of a continuously tunable coherent THz signal from 122.5 GHz to >2.7 THz.

We present a continuously tunable optical frequency comb generator (OFCG), with comb lines spanning over 3.8 THz which, to the best of our knowledge, is the widest span yet reported for a single-phase modulator OFCG system. The line spacing, exactly determined by a microwave reference, can be continuously tuned and, by heterodyning two lines, enables the generation of a continuously tunable electrical signal from 122.5 GHz to >2.7 THz. The composite noise of the heterodyne between two lines has been measured up to a record frequency of 300 GHz and is -75 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset at 300 GHz, limited by the multiplied phase noise of the reference synthesizer.

Electrically pumped continuous-wave 1.3 µm InAs/GaAs quantum dot lasers monolithically grown on on-axis Si (001) substrates.

We report on the first electrically pumped continuous-wave (cw) InAs/GaAs quantum dot (QD) lasers monolithically grown on on-axis Si (001) substrates without any intermediate buffer layers. A 400 nm antiphase boundary (APB) free epitaxial GaAs film with a small root-mean-square (RMS) surface roughness of 0.86 nm was first deposited on a 300 mm standard industry-compatible on-axis Si (001) substrate by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The QD laser structure was then grown on this APB-free GaAs/Si (001) virtual substrate by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Room-temperature cw lasing at ~1.3 µm has been achieved with a threshold current density of 425 A/cm2 and single facet output power of 43 mW. Under pulsed operation, lasing operation up to 102 °C has been realized, with a threshold current density of 250 A/cm2 and single facet output power exceeding 130 mW at room temperature.

Foundry fabricated photonic integrated circuit optical phase lock loop.

This paper describes the first foundry-based InP photonic integrated circuit (PIC) designed to work within a heterodyne optical phase locked loop (OPLL). The PIC and an external electronic circuit were used to phase-lock a single-line semiconductor laser diode to an incoming reference laser, with tuneable frequency offset from 4 GHz to 12 GHz. The PIC contains 33 active and passive components monolithically integrated on a single chip, fully demonstrating the capability of a generic foundry PIC fabrication model. The electronic part of the OPLL consists of commercially available RF components. This semi-packaged system stabilizes the phase and frequency of the integrated laser so that an absolute frequency, high-purity heterodyne signal can be generated when the OPLL is in operation, with phase noise lower than -100 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset from the carrier. This is the lowest phase noise level ever demonstrated by monolithically integrated OPLLs.

Terahertz generation mechanism in nano-grating electrode photomixers on Fe-doped InGaAsP.

We report the generation mechanism associated with nano-grating electrode photomixers fabricated on Fe-doped InGaAsP substrates. Two different emitter designs incorporating nano-gratings coupled to the same broadband antenna were characterized in a continuous-wave terahertz (THz) frequency system employing telecommunications wavelength lasers for generation and coherent detection. The current-voltage characteristics and THz emission bandwidth of the emitters is compared for different bias polarities and optical polarisations. The THz output from the emitters is also mapped as a function of the position of the laser excitation spot for both continuous-wave and pulsed excitation. This mapping, together with full-wave simulations of the structures, confirms the generation mechanism to be due to an enhanced optical electric field at the grating tips resulting in increased optical absorption, coinciding with a concentration of the electrostatic field.

Modelling and measurement of the absolute level of power radiated by antenna integrated THz UTC photodiodes.

We determine the output impedance of uni-travelling carrier (UTC) photodiodes at frequencies up to 400 GHz by performing, for the first time, 3D full-wave modelling of detailed UTC photodiode structures. In addition, we demonstrate the importance of the UTC impedance evaluation, by using it in the prediction of the absolute power radiated by an antenna integrated UTC, over a broad frequency range and confirming the predictions by experimental measurements up to 185 GHz. This is done by means of 3D full-wave modelling and is only possible since the source (UTC) to antenna impedance match is properly taken into account. We also show that, when the UTC-to-antenna coupling efficiency is modelled using the classical junction-capacitance/series-resistance concept, calculated and measured levels of absolute radiated power are in substantial disagreement, and the maximum radiated power is overestimated by a factor of almost 7 dB. The ability to calculate the absolute emitted power correctly enables the radiated power to be maximised through optimisation of the UTC-to-antenna impedance match.

Accurate equivalent circuit model for millimetre-wave UTC photodiodes.

We present a comprehensive study of uni-travelling carrier photodiode impedance and frequency photo-response supported by measurements up to 110 GHz. The results of this investigation provide valuable new information for the optimisation of the coupling efficiency between UTC-PDs and THz antennas. We show that the measured impedance cannot be explained employing the standard junction-capacitance/series-resistance concept and propose a new model for the observed effects, which exhibits good agreement with the experimental data. The achieved knowledge of the photodiode impedance will allow the absolute level of power emitted by antenna integrated UTCs to be predicted and ultimately maximised.

Optical injection locking to optical frequency combs for superchannel coherent detection.

Optical injection locking characteristics of a distributed feedback laser are experimentally investigated for multiple-wavelength injection. Using a three-wavelength source generated by intensity modulation as the injected signal, it was found that the presence of adjacent lines could cause disturbance to the locking if a minimum guard band between the respective locking limits of two adjacent lines was not observed. With a 21-line comb with 20 GHz line spacing as the injected signal, the injection locking range was observed to become asymmetrical in relation to the laser free-running frequency under high-power injection conditions and was found to be dependent on whether the laser was locked to lines located at centre and or edges of the comb. Finally, the use of the injection locked laser as a seed laser for generating a local oscillator (LO) comb for superchannel coherent detection was investigated and the phase error between the input and LO combs analysed.

Wafer-scale fabrication of self-catalyzed 1.7 eV GaAsP core-shell nanowire photocathode on silicon substrates.

We present the wafer-scale fabrication of self-catalyzed p-n homojunction 1.7 eV GaAsP core-shell nanowire photocathodes grown on silicon substrates by molecular beam epitaxy with the incorporation of Pt nanoparticles as hydrogen evolution cocatalysts. Under AM 1.5G illumination, the GaAsP nanowire photocathode yielded a photocurrent density of 4.5 mA/cm(2) at 0 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode and a solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 0.5%, which are much higher than the values previously reported for wafer-scale III-V nanowire photocathodes. In addition, GaAsP has been found to be more resistant to photocorrosion than InGaP. These results open up a new approach to develop efficient tandem photoelectrochemical devices via fabricating GaAsP nanowires on a silicon platform.

InAs/GaAs quantum-dot superluminescent diodes monolithically grown on a Ge substrate.

We report the first InAs/GaAs quantum-dot (QD) superluminescent diode (SLD) monolithically grown on a Ge substrate by molecular beam epitaxy. The QD SLD exhibits a 3 dB emission bandwidth of ~60 nm centered at 1252 nm with output power of 27 mW at room temperature. The 3 dB bandwidth is very stable over the temperature range from 20 °C to 100 °C, which highlights the potential for integration with high performance ICs.

Photonic generation for multichannel THz wireless communication.

We experimentally demonstrate photonic generation of a multichannel THz wireless signal at carrier frequency 200 GHz, with data rate up to 75 Gbps in QPSK modulation format, using an optical heterodyne technique and digital coherent detection. BER measurements were carried out for three subcarriers each modulated with 5 Gbaud QPSK or for two subcarriers modulated with 10 Gbaud QPSK, giving a total speed of 30 Gbps or 40 Gbps, respectively. The system evaluation was also performed with three subcarriers modulated with 12.5 Gbaud QPSK (75 Gbps total) without and with 40 km fibre transmission. The proposed system enhances the capacity of high-speed THz wireless transmission by using spectrally efficient modulated subcarriers spaced at the baud rate. This approach increases the overall transmission capacity and reduces the bandwidth requirement for electronic devices.

High temperature operation of athermal widely tuneable laser with simplified wavelength control for WDM-PON systems.

A simplified control system is described which uses only three point calibration to maintain the wavelength of the ITU channels of an uncooled DS-DBR laser, spaced at 50GHz, over the full C-band. Wavelength is controlled mode-hop free over a temperature range of 45° to 80°C.

1.3-µm InAs/GaAs quantum-dot lasers monolithically grown on Si substrates using InAlAs/GaAs dislocation filter layers.

We compare InAlAs/GaAs and InGaAs/GaAs strained-layer superlattices (SLSs) as dislocation filter layers for 1.3-µm InAs/GaAs quantum-dot laser structures directly grown on Si substrates. InAlAs/GaAs SLSs are found to be more effective than InGaAs/GaAs SLSs in blocking the propagation of threading dislocations generated at the interface between the GaAs buffer layer and the Si substrate. Room-temperature lasing at ~1.27 µm with a threshold current density of 194 A/cm(2) and output power of ~77 mW has been demonstrated for broad-area lasers grown on Si substrates using InAlAs/GaAs dislocation filter layers.

Optical injection locking of monolithically integrated photonic source for generation of high purity signals above 100 GHz.

A monolithically integrated photonic source for tuneable mm-wave signal generation has been fabricated. The source consists of 14 active components, i.e. semiconductor lasers, amplifiers and photodetectors, all integrated on a 3 mm(2) InP chip. Heterodyne signals in the range between 85 GHz and 120 GHz with up to -10 dBm output power have been successfully generated. By optically injection locking the integrated lasers to an external optical comb source, high-spectral-purity signals at frequencies >100 GHz have been generated, with phase noise spectral density below -90 dBc/Hz being achieved at offsets from the carrier greater than 10 kHz.

Effects of phosphorous and antimony doping on thin Ge layers grown on Si.

Suppression of threading dislocations (TDs) in thin germanium (Ge) layers grown on silicon (Si) substrates has been critical for realizing high-performance Si-based optoelectronic and electronic devices. An advanced growth strategy is desired to minimize the TD density within a thin Ge buffer layer in Ge-on-Si systems. In this work, we investigate the impact of P dopants in 500-nm thin Ge layers, with doping concentrations from 1 to 50 × 1018 cm-3. The introduction of P dopants has efficiently promoted TD reduction, whose potential mechanism has been explored by comparing it to the well-established Sb-doped Ge-on-Si system. P and Sb dopants reveal different defect-suppression mechanisms in Ge-on-Si samples, inspiring a novel co-doping technique by exploiting the advantages of both dopants. The surface TDD of the Ge buffer has been further reduced by the co-doping technique to the order of 107 cm-2 with a thin Ge layer (of only 500 nm), which could provide a high-quality platform for high-performance Si-based semiconductor devices.