Room-Temperature Lasing from Monolithically Integrated GaAs Microdisks on Silicon

Area of Science:

• Semiconductor physics and materials science
• Optoelectronics and photonics
• Integrated circuit technology

Background:

• Increasing demand for advanced computational systems necessitates enhanced semiconductor microchip functionalities.
• Monolithic integration of III-V semiconductors with silicon (Si) CMOS technology offers superior material properties like high carrier mobility and direct band gaps.
• Silicon photonics requires active III-V optoelectronic devices for low-cost, power-efficient electronic-photonic integrated circuits.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate room-temperature lasing from monolithic III-V microdisk cavities integrated on silicon.
• To investigate the material quality and lasing performance of epitaxially grown AlGaAs/GaAs on Si(001).
• To enable the development of advanced silicon-based photonic integrated circuits.

Main Methods:

• Utilized template-assisted selective epitaxy for monolithic integration of AlGaAs/GaAs on Si(001).
• Fabricated AlGaAs/GaAs microdisk cavities with diameters ranging from 1 to 3 μm.
• Characterized optical properties and lasing performance at various temperatures.

Main Results:

• Achieved room-temperature lasing from monolithically integrated AlGaAs/GaAs microdisk cavities on Si(001).
• The epitaxially grown material exhibited high optical quality, free from critical defects like dislocations or twin boundaries.
• Observed single-mode lasing below 250 K with low lasing thresholds (2–18 pJ/pulse) dependent on cavity size.

Conclusions:

• Monolithic integration of III-V microdisk cavities on silicon is feasible using selective epitaxy.
• The developed approach yields high-quality gain material suitable for photonic applications.
• This integration paves the way for cost-effective and efficient silicon-based photonic integrated circuits.