Monitoring the formation of oxide apertures in micropillar cavities

TL;DR

This paper introduces an imaging method to monitor wet thermal oxidation in micropillar cavities, enabling high-quality optical mode formation and improving fabrication reliability of oxide apertured structures.

Contribution

It presents a novel imaging technique for real-time monitoring of oxidation in micropillar cavities, enhancing control over the fabrication process.

Findings

High-quality optical modes confirmed post-oxidation

Reliable detection of oxidation progress achieved

Enhanced fabrication control demonstrated

Abstract

An imaging technique is presented that enables monitoring of the wet thermal oxidation of a thin AlAs layer embedded between two distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) mirrors in a micropillar. After oxidation we confirm by white light reflection spectroscopy that high quality optical modes confined to a small volume have been formed. The combination of these two optical techniques provides a reliable and efficient way of producing oxide apertured micropillar cavities for which the wet thermal oxidation is a critical fabrication step.