Surface-enhanced gallium arsenide photonic resonator with a quality factor of six million

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates advanced surface control techniques for gallium arsenide optical resonators, achieving a record quality factor of six million and significantly improving their performance for nanophotonics applications.

Contribution

It introduces two novel surface treatment methods that enhance gallium arsenide resonator quality factors and reduce optical losses, surpassing previous benchmarks.

Findings

Quality factor of 6 million achieved

Surface treatments reduce optical absorption

Enhanced device performance in nanophotonics

Abstract

Gallium Arsenide and related compound semiconductors lie at the heart of optoelectronics and integrated laser technologies. Shaped at the micro and nano-scale, they allow strong interaction with quantum dots and quantum wells, and promise to result in stunning devices. However gallium arsenide optical structures presently exhibit lower performances than their silicon-based counterparts, notably in nanophotonics where the surface plays a chief role. Here we report on advanced surface control of miniature gallium arsenide optical resonators, using two distinct techniques that produce permanent results. One leads to extend the lifetime of free-carriers and enhance luminescence, while the other strongly reduces surface absorption originating from mid-gap states and enables ultra-low optical dissipation devices. With such surface control, the quality factor of wavelength-sized optical disk resonators is observed to rise up to six million at telecom wavelength, greatly surpassing previous realizations and opening new prospects for Gallium Arsenide nanophotonics.