Monolithic quantum-dot distributed feedback laser array on silicon

• DOI: 10.1364/optica.5.000528
• Publication Date: 2018-04-26T21:01:22Z
• Authors: Yi Wang; Siming Chen; Ying Yu; Lidan Zhou; Lin Liu; Chunchuan Yang; Mengya Liao; Mingchu Tang; Zizhuo Liu; Jiang Wu; Wei Li; Ian Ross; Alwyn J. Seeds; Huiyun Liu; Siyuan Yu
• Keywords: FOS: Physical sciences; Physics - Applied Physics; Applied Physics (physics.app-ph); 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology; 530; 7. Clean energy; 620; Physics - Optics; Optics (physics.optics)

Electrically-pumped lasers directly grown on silicon are key devices interfacing silicon microelectronics and photonics. We report here, for the first time, an electrically-pumped, room-temperature, continuous-wave (CW) and single-mode distributed feedback (DFB) laser array fabricated in InAs/GaAs quantum-dot (QD) gain material epitaxially grown on silicon. CW threshold currents as low as 12 mA and single-mode side mode suppression ratios (SMSRs) as high as 50 dB have been achieved from individual devices in the array. The laser array, compatible with state-of-the-art coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) systems, has a well-aligned channel spacing of 20 0.2 nm and exhibits a record wavelength coverage range of 100 nm, the full span of the O-band. These results indicate that, for the first time, the performance of lasers epitaxially grown on silicon is elevated to a point approaching real-world CWDM applications, demonstrating the great potential of this technology.