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Nanolasers grown on silicon

Nature Photonics volume 5, pages 170–175 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

The integration of optical interconnects with silicon-based electronics can address the growing limitations facing chip-scale data transport as microprocessors become progressively faster. However, until now, material lattice mismatch and incompatible growth temperatures have fundamentally limited monolithic integration of lasers onto silicon substrates. Here, we use a novel growth scheme to overcome this roadblock and directly grow on-chip InGaAs nanopillar lasers, demonstrating the potency of bottom-up nano-optoelectronic integration. Unique helically propagating cavity modes are used to strongly confine light within subwavelength nanopillars despite the low refractive index contrast between InGaAs and silicon. These modes therefore provide an avenue for engineering on-chip nanophotonic devices such as lasers. Nanopillar lasers are as-grown on silicon, offer tiny footprints and scalability, and are thus particularly suited to high-density optoelectronics. They may ultimately form the basis of future monolithic light sources needed to bridge the existing gap between photonic and electronic circuits.

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Figure 1: InGaAs/GaAs heterostructure nanopillar lasers monolithically grown on silicon.
Figure 2: On-chip nanopillar laser oscillation.
Figure 3: Helically propagating modes for optical feedback of on-chip nanolasers.
Figure 4: Effects of nanopillar sidewall taper on optical modes.
Figure 5: Wavelength control of nanopillar lasers by composition variation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) University Photonics Research (UPR) Award HR0011-04-1-0040, Microelectronics Advanced Research Corp (MARCO) Interconnect Focus Center (IFC) and the Department of Defense (DoD) National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship. C.C.H. acknowledges support from the Chang Jiang Scholar Endowed Chair Professorship at Tsinghua University, China, and the Li Ka Shing Foundation Women in Science Research Grants. R.C. acknowledges support from a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. The authors thank Cun-Zheng Ning and E.K. Lau for fruitful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and Applied Science and Technology Group, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Roger Chen, Thai-Truong D. Tran, Kar Wei Ng, Wai Son Ko, Linus C. Chuang, Forrest G. Sedgwick & Connie Chang-Hasnain

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  1. Roger Chen
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Contributions

C.C.H. proposed and guided the overall project. R.C., T.-T.D.T, K.W.N. and C.C.H. designed the experiments. R.C. and T.-T.D.T. performed optical measurements. K.W.N., W.S.K. and L.C.C. developed and performed material growth. K.W.N. and W.S.K. performed SEM measurements. R.C., T.-T.D.T. and F.G.S. studied and simulated the optical mode. R.C. performed gain modelling and rate equation analysis. R.C. and C.C.H. composed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Connie Chang-Hasnain.

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Chen, R., Tran, TT., Ng, K. et al. Nanolasers grown on silicon. Nature Photon 5, 170–175 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2010.315

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