Hopil Bae

Recent Progress on 1.55-

We review the recent developments in GaAs-based 1.55-mum lasers grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). While materials growth is challenging, the growth window appears to be relatively broad and is described in detail. The key considerations for producing high-quality GalnNAsSb material emitting at 1.55-mum regime are examined, including the nitrogen plasma conditions, ion removal from the nitrogen flux, surfactant- mediated growth, the roles of various V-II ratios, the growth temperature, the active region thermal budget, proper annealing, and composition. We find that emission may be tuned throughout the 1.55-mum communications band without penalty to the optical quality varying only one parameter - the total growth rate. This powerful result is validated by the demonstration of low-threshold edge-emitting lasers throughout the 1.55-mum regime, including threshold current densities as low as 318 A/cm2 at 1.54 mum. Additional characterization by Z-parameter techniques, cavity length studies, and band offset measurements were performed to better understand the temperature stability of device performance. Lasing was extended as far as 1.63 mum under nonoptimized growth conditions. The GaAs-based dilute-nitrides are emerging as a very promising alternative to InP-based materials at 1.55-mum due to their high gain, greater range of achievable band offsets, as well as the availability of lattice-matched AlAs-GaAs materials and native oxide layers for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). Indeed, this effort has enabled the first electrically injected C-band VCSEL on GaAs.

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Antimony has been used as a surfactant to improve the quality of GaInNAs∕GaAs quantum wells for long-wavelength optoelectronics. We demonstrate the importance of antimony as a reactive surfactant and the proper usage of it with dilute nitrides in order to tailor the properties of solar cell and laser devices. The effects of the addition of antimony to low indium concentration (∼8%) and low strain GaInNAs material (for 1.0eV solar cell applications) were investigated. It was assumed previously that adding antimony helped all GaInNAs alloys, but the validity of this was not previously tested. The addition of antimony to high indium concentration (∼32%) and high strain GaInNAs samples led to a dramatic improvement in optical quality and a widening of the growth window, while it led to a degradation in the low indium (low strain) composition samples. The addition of indium under constant antimony flux also improved the optical quality of the GaInNAs material. Variations in the indium and antimony compositions...

Dilute-Nitride Lasers

We propose a new EPON MAC protocol guaranteeing fairness among users by allocating excess bandwidth proportional to their subscription rates. The novelty of the protocol is in the use of scalable per-subscription-rate-queuing with round-robin scheduling and packet reclassification at ONU.

The role of antimony on properties of widely varying GaInNAsSb compositions

Interband transitions in GaInNAsSb∕GaAs single quantum wells (SQWs) with nominally identical nitrogen and antimony concentrations (2.5% N and 7% Sb) and varying indium concentrations (from 8% to 32%) have been investigated by contactless electroreflectance (CER). CER features related to optical transitions between the ground and excited states have been clearly observed. Energies of the QW transitions extracted from CER measurements have been matched with those obtained from theoretical calculations performed within the effective mass approximation for various conduction-band offsets (QC) and various electron effective masses. It has been found that the QC increases from 40% to 80% with the rise of the indium content from 8% to 32% and the electron effective mass is close to 0.09m0. The results show that the band gap discontinuity in GaInNAsSb∕GaAs SQWs can be broadly tuned with a change in the indium concentration.

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The photoluminescence efficiency and linewidth are well-established metrics for characterizing potential laser active regions. We demonstrate the critical importance of a new parameter for predicting the performance of dilute-nitride lasers: the “optimal” postgrowth annealing temperature, defined as the annealing temperature giving the highest photoluminescence efficiency. We validate this assertion with two 1.55μm edge-emitting GaInNAsSb lasers containing active regions with different optimal annealing temperatures. Although both active regions showed comparable photoluminescence efficiency and linewidth under optimal annealing conditions, laser performance was significantly different. The room-temperature threshold current density for the active region with higher optimal annealing temperature was 630A∕cm2, compared with 2380A∕cm2 for the sample with lower optimal annealing temperature. We conclude that overannealing of the gain region during upper cladding growth is the responsible mechanism. The depen...

Contactless electroreflectance of GaInNAsSb/GaAs single quantum wells with indium content of 8%-32%

Contactless electroreflectance (CER) spectroscopy has been applied to study optical transitions in Ga0.9In0.1N0.027As0.973−xSbx∕GaAs single quantum well (QW) with antimony content varying from 0% to 5.4%. CER features related to optical transitions between the ground and excited states have been clearly observed. Energies of the QW transitions have been matched with those obtained from theoretical calculations. It has been determined that the conduction band offset decreases from ∼55% to ∼45% with the increase in Sb content from 0% to 5.4%. This result demonstrates that the band gap discontinuity for Ga0.9In0.1N0.027As0.973−xSbx∕GaAs system can be simply tuned by a change in antimony content.

Overannealing effects in GaInNAs"Sb… alloys and their importance to laser applications

We have measured the absorption, gain and spontaneous emission spectra of GalnNAsSb (3.3%N), GalnNAs (0.5%N) and GalnAs quantum well structures to compare their merits as laser gain media. The parameters describing the relations between peak gain and current provide only limited insight. From the analysis of absorption spectra we have determined the intrinsic properties of the structures, represented by the product [reduced density of states × matrix element × overlap integral], taking account of differences in operating wavelength, well width and confinement. We find only a small variation in this product across the samples. The GalnNAsSb structure has a low radiative recombination current due in part to its low photon energy and also to differences in conduction and valence band densities of states and less inhomogeneous broadening relative to GalnNAs. We speculate that Sb brings benefits as a surfactant producing more homogeneous wells so Sb may also be beneficial in structures at shorter wavelength. However, there is a large non radiative current in GalnNAsSb and achieving further reductions in the non-radiative current is the major challenge in taking advantage of the good gain potential of this system.

Band gap discontinuity in Ga0.9In0.1N0.027As0.973−xSbx∕GaAs single quantum wells with 0⩽x<0.06 studied by contactless electroreflectance spectroscopy

A fruitful approach to study the Fermi level position in GaInNAs/GaAs quantum wells (QWs) has been proposed in this paper. This approach utilizes contactless electroreflectance (CER) spectroscopy and a very simple design of semiconductor structures. The idea of this design is to insert a GaInNAs quantum well (QW) into a region of undoped GaAs layer grown on n-type GaAs substrate. The possible pinning of the Fermi level in the GaInNAs QW region modifies band bending in this system. In CER spectra both QW transitions and GaAs-related Franz-Keldysh oscillations (FKOs) are clearly observed. The analysis of QW transitions allows one to determine the band gap discontinuity at GaInNAs/GaAs interface whereas the analysis of FKOs allows one to determine the built-in electric field in the GaAs cap layer, and, finally, one is able to find the Fermi level pinning in GaInNAs QW region.

Optical Gain in GaInNAs and GaInNAsSb Quantum Wells

The solid-source molecular-beam epitaxial growth of low-threshold GaAs-based GaInNAsSb lasers is discussed. A general narrowing of the growth window was observed with increasing wavelength, due to the increased nitrogen required (⩾1%), and has historically made high-performance devices more difficult to achieve beyond ∼1.35μm. The introduction of antimony and reduction in plasma-related damage from the rf nitrogen source dramatically improved material quality and widened the growth window. We validate these observations with 1.5μm edge-emitting ridge-waveguide lasers with cw threshold current densities as low as 440A∕cm2, peak CW output powers of 431mW, peak cw wallplug efficiencies >16%, and pulsed output powers >1W.

Contactless electroreflectance approach to study the Fermi level position in GaInNAs/GaAs quantum wells

GaN0.02As0.87Sb0.11∕GaAs single-quantum wells have been investigated by photoreflectance (PR) at room temperature. PR features related to the ground and excited state transitions have been clearly observed. The experimental data have been compared with the calculations in the envelope function formalism taking account the effect of strain. The band gap lowering and the increase in the electron effective mass due to the incorporation of nitrogen atoms into GaAsSb have been included. Excellent agreement between experimental data and calculation results have been found for band structure Type-I with the conduction-band offset ratio of 50%.