Design of Photonic Crystal Membrane-Reflector-Based VCSELs

• Main Authors: D. Zhao, H. Yang, S. Chuwongin, J. H. Seo, Z. Ma, W. Zhou
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2012-01-01
• Series: IEEE Photonics Journal
• Subjects: Fano resonance; photonic crystals (PCs); membrane reflectors (MRs); vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs); semiconductor lasers; silicon nanophotonics
• Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6355591/

We present here the cavity design of distributed-Bragg-reflector-free ultracompact Fano-resonance photonic crystal membrane-reflector vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers on silicon, which consists of a III-V quantum-well active region sandwiched in between two single-layer Si membrane reflectors (MRs). The Si reflectors are designed to have peak reflection band around 1550 nm, with over 300-nm reflection band. The complete laser cavity resonance was determined, with considerations of unique phase and field distribution characteristics associated with these single-layer MRs. The confinement factor of the lasing mode is optimized around 6%, which enables low threshold lasing.