Forrest G. Sedgwick

Nanolasers grown on silicon

Based on a CMOS-compatible growth process, researchers successfully demonstrate the bottom-up integration of InGaAs nanopillar lasers onto silicon chips. The resulting nanolaser offers tiny footprints and scalability, making it particularly suited to high-density optoelectronics.

Slow light in semiconductor quantum wells.

We experimentally demonstrate slow-light via population pulsation in semiconductor quantum well structures. A group velocity as small as 9600 m/s is inferred from the measured dispersive characteristics. The transparency window exhibits a bandwidth of 2 GHz

Theoretical analysis of subwavelength high contrast grating reflectors

A simple analytic analysis of the ultra-high reflectivity feature of subwavelength dielectric gratings is developed. The phenomenon of ultra high reflectivity is explained to be a destructive interference effect between the two grating modes. Based on this phenomenon, a design algorithm for broadband grating mirrors is suggested.

Planar high-numerical-aperture low-loss focusing reflectors and lenses using subwavelength high contrast gratings

We propose planar, high numerical aperture (NA), low loss, focusing reflectors and lenses using subwavelength high contrast gratings (HCGs). By designing the reflectance and the phase of non-periodic HCGs, both focusing reflectors and lenses can be constructed. Numerical aperture values as high as 0.81 and 0.96 are achieved for a reflector and lens with very low losses of 0.3 and 0.2 dB, respectively. The design algorithm is also shown to be readily extended to a 2D lens. Furthermore, HCG optics can simultaneously focus the reflected and transmitted waves, with important technological implications. HCG focusing optics are defined by one-step photolithography and thus can be readily integrated with many devices including VCSELs, saturable absorbers, telescopes, CCDs and solar cells.

High-Index-Contrast Grating (HCG) and Its Applications in Optoelectronic Devices

We review recent advances in subwavelength high-index-contrast gratings (HCGs) and a variety of applications in optoelectronic devices, including vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), tunable VCSELs, high-Q optical resonators, and low-loss hollow-core waveguides (HWs). HCGs can serve as broadband (Delta lambda/lambda ~ 35%), high-reflectivity (>99%) mirrors for surface-normal incident light, which is useful to replace conventional distributed Bragg reflectors in optical devices. HCGs can also be designed as high-Q resonators with output coupling in the surface-normal direction. Finally, we discuss a novel design of HCG as shallow angle reflectors and HWs.

Room temperature slow light in a quantum-well waveguide via coherent population oscillation

We report room temperature demonstration of slow light propagation via coherent population oscillation (CPO) in a GaAs quantum well waveguide. Measurements of the group delay of an amplitude modulated signal resonant with the heavy-hole exciton transition reveal delays as long as 830 ps. The measured bandwidth, which approaches 100 MHz, is related to the lifetime of the photoexcited electron-hole (e-h) plasma as expected for CPO process.

GaAs-Based Nanoneedle Light Emitting Diode and Avalanche Photodiode Monolithically Integrated on a Silicon Substrate

Monolithic integration of III-V compound semiconductor devices with silicon CMOS integrated circuits has been hindered by large lattice mismatches and incompatible processing due to high III-V epitaxy temperatures. We report the first GaAs-based avalanche photodiodes (APDs) and light emitting diodes, directly grown on silicon at a very low, CMOS-compatible temperature and fabricated using conventional microfabrication techniques. The APDs exhibit an extraordinarily large multiplication factor at low voltage resulting from the unique needle shape and growth mode.

A novel ultra-low loss hollow-core waveguide using subwavelength high-contrast gratings

We propose a novel ultra-low loss single-mode hollow-core waveguide using subwavelength high-contrast grating (HCG). We analyzed and simulated the propagation loss of the waveguide and show it can be as low as 0.006 dB/m, three orders of magnitude lower than the lowest loss of the state-of-art chip-scale hollow waveguides. This novel HCG hollow-core waveguide design will serve as a basic building block in many chip-scale integrated photonic circuits enabling system-level applications including optical interconnects, optical delay lines, and optical sensors.

Ultraslow light (<200m∕s) propagation in a semiconductor nanostructure

We report time-domain measurements of ultraslow light propagation in a semiconductor quantum-well structure using coherent population oscillation. Delays greater than 1 ns are achieved for an amplitude-modulated optical beam propagating through a 195-nm-long active region, corresponding to group velocities less than 200m∕s. Delays can be easily varied by adjusting the intensity of the control laser. The bandwidth is suitable to delay sub-GHz modulated optical signals.We report time-domain measurements of ultraslow light propagation in a semiconductor quantum-well structure using coherent population oscillation. Delays greater than 1 ns are achieved for an amplitude-modulated optical beam propagating through a 195-nm-long active region, corresponding to group velocities less than 200m∕s. Delays can be easily varied by adjusting the intensity of the control laser. The bandwidth is suitable to delay sub-GHz modulated optical signals.

THz-bandwidth tunable slow light in semiconductor optical amplifiers

We report tunable fractional delays of 250% for 700 fs pulses propagating in a 1.55 mum semiconductor optical amplifier at room temperature. This large fractional delay is attributed to a spectral hole created by the propagating pulses for pulses with duration shorter than the carrier heating relaxation time. Delay can be tuned electrically by adjusting the current with low amplitude variation across the tuning range.