Nahid A. Jahan

Temperature dependent carrier dynamics in telecommunication band InAs quantum dots and dashes grown on InP substrates

InAs quantum dots (QDs) grown on InP substrates can be used as light emitters in the telecommunication bands. In this paper, we present optical characterization of high-density circular quantum dots (QDots) grown on InP(311)B substrates and elongated dots (QDashes) grown on InP(001) substrates. We study the charge carrier transfer and luminescence thermal quenching mechanisms of the QDots and QDashes by investigating the temperature dependence of their time-integrated and time-resolved photoluminescence properties. This results in two different contributions of the thermal activation energies. The larger activation energies are attributed to the carrier escape to the barrier layer and the wetting layer (WL) from QDots and QDashes, respectively. The smaller activation energies are found to be originated from inter-dot/dash carrier transfer via coupled excited states. The variation of the average oscillator strength associated with the carrier re-distribution is discussed. The relation of the two activation...

Single-photon emission in telecommunication band from an InAs quantum dot grown on InP with molecular-beam epitaxy

We report on the experimental demonstration of a single-photon source based on an InAs quantum dot (QD) on InP grown by molecular-beam epitaxy emitting in the telecommunication band. We develop a method to reduce the QD density to prevent inter-dot coupling via tunneling through coupled excited states. A single InAs QD embedded in an as-etched pillar structure exhibits intense and narrow emission lines. Photon antibunching is clearly observed using superconducting single-photon detectors with high sensitivity, and further improvement of the generated single-photon purity is demonstrated with below-barrier-bandgap excitation.

Inter-dot coupling and excitation transfer mechanisms of telecommunication band InAs quantum dots at elevated temperatures

We investigate the photoluminescence temperature dependence of individual InAs/InGaAlAs quantum dots emitting in the optical telecommunication bands. The high-density dots are grown on InP substrates and the selection of a smaller dot number is done by the processing of suitable nanometer-sized mesas. Using ensembles of only a few dots inside such mesas, their temperature stability, inter-dot charge transfer, as well as carrier capture and escape mechanisms out of the dots are investigated systematically. This includes the discussion of the dot ensemble and individual dots. Among the single-dot properties, we investigate the transition of emission lines from zero-phonon line to acoustic phonon sideband-dominated line shape with temperature. Moreover, the presence of single recombination lines up to temperatures of about 150?K is demonstrated.

Carrier dynamics and photoluminescence quenching mechanism of strained InGaSb/AlGaSb quantum wells

GaSb based quantum wells (QWs) show promising optical properties in near-infrared spectral range. In this paper, we present photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopies of InxGa1−xSb/AlyGa1−ySb QWs and discuss the possible thermal quenching and non-radiative carrier recombination mechanisms of the QW structures. The In and Al concentrations as well as the QW thicknesses were precisely determined with the X-ray diffraction measurements. Temperature dependent time-integrated and time-resolved PL spectroscopies resulted in the thermal activation energies of ∼45 meV, and the overall self-consistent calculation of the band parameters based on the measured physical values confirmed that the activation energies are due to the hole escape from the QW to the barriers. The relation of the present single carrier escape mechanism with the other escape mechanisms reported with other material systems was discussed based on the estimated band offset. The relation of the present thermal hole escape to the Auger recombination wa...

High-Q resonance modes observed in a metallic nanocavity

Metallic nanocavities have been actively studied for realizing nanolasers with low threshold. Presence of resonance modes with high cavity Q values is the indication of low internal loss that leads to low threshold lasing. However, cavity Q values observed in metallic nanocavities below lasing threshold remain low at present on the order of 100 to 500. We study the possibility to realize higher resonance Q values with a metallic nanocavity. For probing purpose of cavity modes we propose to employ broad mid-gap-state optical emission of n-type GaAs. With this method we report the observation of a resonance mode with the high Q value of 3800 at room temperature with the metallic nanocavity. The cavity mode is identified as a whispering-gallery mode with finite-element-method simulation.

Growth and Optimization of 2-μm InGaSb/AlGaSb Quantum-Well-Based VECSELs on GaAs/AlGaAs DBRs

We report the growth of optically pumped vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs) based on InGaSb/AlGaSb quantum wells grown on GaAs/AlGaAs distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). The 7.78% lattice mismatch between GaSb and GaAs is accommodated by an array of 90° misfit dislocations at the interface. This results in spontaneous relaxation of the GaSb epilayer and also significantly reduces the threading dislocation density. The VECSELs are operated in both pulsed (with 340-W peak output power) and continuous wave mode (with 0.12-W peak output power). We investigate the effects of the GaSb/GaAs interface by comparing the lattice mismatched III-Sb VECSEL grown on GaAs/AlGaAs DBRs to a lattice matched III-Sb VECSEL grown on GaSb/AlAsSb DBRs. The lattice matched VECSEL outperforms the lattice mismatched VECSEL in terms of threshold pump density, efficiency, and maximum continuous-wave output power. This can be attributed to the presence of threading dislocations throughout the active region of the mismatched VECSEL, which is confirmed by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy. The optical properties of the III-Sb active regions are characterized by time-resolved photoluminescence, which can be used to optimize the IMF interface.

Subwavelength metallic cavities with high-Q resonance modes

Metallic cavities have been extensively studied to realize small-volume nanocavities and nanolasers. However cavity-resonance quality (Q) factors of nanolasers observed up to now remain low (up to ∼500) due to metal optical absorption. In this paper, we report the observation of highest Q factors of 9000 at low temperature and ∼6000 near room temperature in a metallic cavity with a probe of sub-bandgap emission of Si-doped GaAs. We analyze the temperature dependence of cavity-mode resonance wavelengths and show that the refractive-index term dominates the measured temperature dependence. We also show that this refractive-index term is cavity-mode dependent and the fitting procedure offers a new method to identify cavity modes. We simulate the metallic cavity with finite-element method and attribute the high-Q cavity mode to a whispering gallery optical mode. This mode is shown to have isotropic polarization dependence of the output emission, which is preferable for quantum information applications.

Spectral and Transient Luminescence Measurements on GaSb/AlGaSb Quantum Wells Grown on GaSb/GaAs Heterojunctions with and without Interfacial Misfit Arrays

Growth of 90° interfacial-misfit-dislocation (IMF) array at heterointerfaces offers low dislocation densities in highly mismatched heterostructures such as GaSb/GaAs. We investigated time-integrated and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) properties of a GaSb/AlGaSb quantum well (QW) structure grown on (001) GaAs substrate with and without IMF array at the GaSb-buffer/GaAs interface. Our observation reveals that the low-temperature PL from the QW with IMF is twice more intense than that of the QW without IMF, indicating higher quantum efficiency with IMF. The QW with IMF also exhibited the band filling effect at higher excitation power revealed from the spectrally resolved PL decay measurements. These results are the indication of subdued dislocation density with the IMF growth mode. Our PL measurement results along with supportive band-structure calculation of the GaSb/AlGaSb QW show that the luminescence efficiency of the present QW structure is limited by the hole leakage at elevated temperature. Therefore the IMF effect will be more clearly demonstrated by replacing the heterostructure with the one with higher band-offsets.