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A wavelength-selective photonic-crystal waveguide coupled to a nanowire light source

Nature Photonics volume 2, pages 622–626 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The efficient delivery of photons from light sources to photonic circuits is central to any fibre-optic or integrated optical system. Coupling light emitters to optical fibres or waveguides determines the photon flux available in, and therefore the performance of, photonic devices used in applications such as optical communication and information processing. Many solutions have been proposed to improve impedance matching in light-emitting diode-to-fibre or photonic-crystal cavity-to-waveguide systems; however, the efficient coupling of integrated light sources into nanophotonic circuits remains a challenge. Here, we propose an optically or electrically driven photonic structure that uses active semiconductor nanowires to light up photonic-crystal waveguides. The photonic crystal is used to either guide or filter out different colours of light as desired. In addition, we report an active nanowire-based optical structure that can generate two different colours of light and then send them in opposite directions. The hybrid nanowire/photonic-crystal waveguide represents a significant advance towards all-optical processing in nanoscale integrated photonic circuits and a new addition to the nanophotonic toolbox.

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Figure 1: Optical injection from the CdS semiconductor nanowire into the photonic-crystal waveguide.
Figure 2: Light injection from an electrically driven nanowire LED structure into a photonic-crystal waveguide.
Figure 3: Characterization and modelling of the wavelength-selective nanowire/photonic-crystal structure.
Figure 4: PL study of the wavelength-selective nanowire/photonic-crystal structure.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. K. Yang, M. K. Seo, S. H. Kwon and Y. H. Lee for help with FDTD simulation and W. I. Park for help with fabrication. This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. H.G.P. acknowledged the support of this work by OPERA of the KOSEF and the Seoul R & BD Program.

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Author notes

  1. Hong-Gyu Park and Carl J. Barrelet: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Hong-Gyu Park, Carl J. Barrelet, Yongning Wu, Bozhi Tian, Fang Qian & Charles M. Lieber

  2. Department of Physics, Korea University, Seoul, 136-701, South Korea

    Hong-Gyu Park

  3. School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Charles M. Lieber

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  1. Hong-Gyu Park
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Correspondence to Hong-Gyu Park.

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Park, HG., Barrelet, C., Wu, Y. et al. A wavelength-selective photonic-crystal waveguide coupled to a nanowire light source. Nature Photon 2, 622–626 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2008.180

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