Effects of Thermal-Strain-Induced Atomic Intermixing on the Interfacial and Photoluminescence Properties of InGaAs/AlGaAs Multiple Quantum Wells.

Quantum-well intermixing (QWI) technology is commonly considered as an effective methodology to tune the post-growth bandgap energy of semiconductor composites for electronic applications in diode lasers and photonic integrated devices. However, the specific influencing mechanism of the interfacial strain introduced by the dielectric-layer-modulated multiple quantum well (MQW) structures on the photoluminescence (PL) property and interfacial quality still remains unclear. Therefore, in the present study, different thicknesses of SiO2-layer samples were coated and then annealed under high temperature to introduce interfacial strain and enhance atomic interdiffusion at the barrier-well interfaces. Based on the optical and microstructural experimental test results, it was found that the SiO2 capping thickness played a positive role in driving the blueshift of the PL peak, leading to a widely tunable PL emission for post-growth MQWs. After annealing, the blueshift in the InGaAs/AlGaAs MQW structures was found to increase with increased thickness of the SiO2 layer, and the largest blueshift of 30 eV was obtained in the sample covered with a 600 nm thick SiO2 layer that was annealed at 850 °C for 180 s. Additionally, significant well-width fluctuations were observed at the MQW interface after intermixing, due to the interfacial strain introduced by the thermal mismatch between SiO2 and GaAs, which enhanced the inhomogeneous diffusion rate of interfacial atoms. Thus, it can be demonstrated that the introduction of appropriate interfacial strain in the QWI process is of great significance for the regulation of MQW band structure as well as the control of interfacial quality.

Stepped-height ridge waveguide MQW polarization mode converter monolithically integrated with sidewall grating DFB laser.

We report, to the best of our knowledge, the first demonstration of a 1555-nm stepped-height ridge waveguide polarization mode converter monolithically integrated with a sidewall grating distributed-feedback (DFB) laser using the identical epitaxial layer scheme. The device shows stable single longitudinal mode (SLM) operation with the output light converted from TE to TM polarization with an efficiency of >94% over a wide range of DFB injection currents (IDFB) from 140 mA to 190 mA. The highest TM mode purity of 98.2% was obtained at IDFB = 180 mA. A particular advantage of this device is that only a single step of metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy and two steps of III-V material dry etching are required for the whole integrated device fabrication, significantly reducing complexity and cost.

Robust and Low-Power-Consumption Black Phosphorus-Graphene Artificial Synaptic Devices.

Two-dimensional (2D) black phosphorus (BP) materials, as the most promising building blocks for the development of artificial synapses, have attracted more and more attention. However, the instability of exfoliated 2D BP structures still remains a problem in the development of artificial synapse devices. In this study, the robust and low-power-consumption artificial-synaptic-based BP was successfully manufactured. The synapse devices have high stability in the air atmosphere and do not show obvious degradation over 3 months. The obtained devices not only implement the main function of synapses but also perform the function of dendritic neural synapses and simple logical operations, revealing their very strong learning behavior. The high mobility of 2D BP as well as the coupled effect and quantum confinement effect of the graphene oxide quantum dot (GOQD) can greatly boost the performance of BP-based synapse devices, such as low power consumption (62 pW) and high sensitivity (ultrasmall stimuli at an amplitude of -20 mV). Moreover, benefiting from the GOQD and the interaction between BP and graphene, the main dominated mechanism of the BP-graphene synapse device can be the capture and release of electrons by the 2D BP and GOQD instead of the conductive filament.

Frequency comb with 100 GHz spacing generated by an asymmetric MQW passively mode-locked laser.

A L-band two-section AlGaInAs/InP asymmetric multiple quantum well (QW) passively mode-locked laser has been used to generate a frequency comb with a 100 GHz spacing at a central wavelength of 1610 nm. The comb contains 10 optical lines within a -3dB bandwidth of 8.05 nm and 34 optical lines within a -20dB bandwidth of 30 nm. The mode-locked pulse duration was 440 fs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the shortest pulse duration from any directly electrically pumped QW semiconductor mode-locked laser.

Suppression of substrate mode in GaN-based green laser diodes.

Parasitic substrate mode readily appears in GaN-based laser diodes (LDs) because of insufficient optical confinement, especially for green LDs. Substrate modes affect the behavior of a LD severely, including the laser beam quality, the optical output power, the longitudinal mode stability, and the maximum modulation speed. In this article, systematic studies on the n-cladding layer (CL) design to suppress the substrate mode of GaN-based green LDs were carried out. We established a contour map to describe the relationship between the optical confinement (determined by the thickness and the refractive index) of n-CL and the substrate mode intensity by simulating the near-field pattern and the far-field pattern. We found that it was difficult to obtain the Gaussian-shape far-field pattern using AlGaN as a cladding layer due to the appearance of cracks induced by tensile strain. However, this can be realized by introducing quaternary AlInGaN as a cladding layer since refractive index and strain can be tuned separately for quaternary alloy.

Proposal and numerical study of a flexible visible photonic crystal defect cavity for nanoscale strain sensors.

A flexible photonic crystal cavity, consisting of a III-V active layer embedded in a flexible medium, with a line-defect by removing three air holes for nanoscale structural deformation detection is proposed and optimized. The cavity can hold the photonic band-gap modes with the fundamental mode located at approximately 686 nm, overlapping with the photoluminescence spectrum of the InGaP/InGaAlP quantum wells. Results of finite-difference time-domain simulations indicate that the L3 cavity features an ultra-compact mode volume of 10-3 µm3 and high quality factor of 104 at a sub-micron footprint within the studied visible wavelength. Theoretical optical strain sensitivities of approximately 4.5 and 3 nm per ε (1% strain for both) for the x and y directions are predicted, respectively. When the cavity is under large bending curvatures, the Q factor rapidly decreases from 8000 to 2000.

Study on DFB semiconductor laser array integrated with grating reflector based on reconstruction-equivalent-chirp technique.

A 4-channel distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser array with incorporation of a grating reflector utilizing reconstruction-equivalent-chirp technique is theoretically studied and experimentally demonstrated. By integrating with a grating reflector, 40% increase of slope efficiency, about 10mA decrease of threshold current and 7dB increase of side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) are achieved with a deviation of wavelength spacing being less than 0.07nm. The SMSRs of all the lasers are higher than 60dB.

High channel count and high precision channel spacing multi-wavelength laser array for future PICs.

Multi-wavelength semiconductor laser arrays (MLAs) have wide applications in wavelength multiplexing division (WDM) networks. In spite of their tremendous potential, adoption of the MLA has been hampered by a number of issues, particularly wavelength precision and fabrication cost. In this paper, we report high channel count MLAs in which the wavelengths of each channel can be determined precisely through low-cost standard µm-level photolithography/holographic lithography and the reconstruction-equivalent-chirp (REC) technique. 60-wavelength MLAs with good wavelength spacing uniformity have been demonstrated experimentally, in which nearly 83% lasers are within a wavelength deviation of ±0.20 nm, corresponding to a tolerance of ±0.032 nm in the period pitch. As a result of employing the equivalent phase shift technique, the single longitudinal mode (SLM) yield is nearly 100%, while the theoretical yield of standard DFB lasers is only around 33.3%.

Characterization of graphene layers using super resolution polarization parameter indirect microscopic imaging.

We report on the development of super-resolution polarization (parameter) indirect microscopic imaging (PIMI) and its application to visualizing and quantifying graphene layer's morphological and structural features. The PIMI system was built by modifying a conventional optical microscopy such that the variation of the polarization status of incident light can be precisely controlled, imaging was subsequently acquired by analyzing the dependence of the optical intensity transmitted through (or reflected from) the samples on the incident light polarization status. Measurements on the thickness as well as other structural features of graphene samples which had been prepared by different methods were performed. The results which were highly consistent to those measured by Raman spectroscopy indicate that the PIMI system is capable of characterizing graphene's dimensional and structural features with super resolution.

Low divergence angle and low jitter 40 GHz AlGaInAs/InP 1.55 µm mode-locked lasers.

We demonstrate a novel (to the best of our knowledge) 40 GHz passively mode-locked AlGaInAs/InP 1.55 µm laser with a low divergence angle (12.7°×26.3°), timing jitter of 1.2 ps (10 kHz-100 MHz), and a radio frequency linewidth of 25 kHz.

160 GHz harmonic mode-locked AlGaInAs 1.55 µm strained quantum-well compound-cavity laser.

We characterized the reflectivity and the modal discrimination of intracavity reflectors (ICRs) with different numbers of slots and presented harmonic mode-locking operation of a monolithic semiconductor laser comprising a compound cavity formed by a single deeply etched slot ICR fabricated from 1.55 µm AlGaInAs strained quantum well material. Gaussian pulses were generated at a 161.8 GHz repetition rate with a pulse duration of 1.67 ps and a time-bandwidth product of 0.81.