Continuous-wave operation and 10-Gb/s direct modulation of InAsP/InP sub-wavelength nanowire laser on silicon photonic crystal

TL;DR

This paper reports the first demonstration of a telecom-band continuous-wave nanowire laser on silicon that can be directly modulated at 10 Gb/s, using a novel detection technique at cryogenic temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a sub-wavelength InAsP/InP nanowire laser on silicon with high-speed modulation capabilities and a new signal detection method for small signal response analysis.

Findings

Achieved 10 Gb/s direct modulation of CW nanowire laser

Demonstrated unambiguous high-speed modulation with open eye pattern

First telecom-band CW nanowire laser with PRBS modulation

Abstract

We demonstrated sub-wavelength (~111 nm diameter) single nanowire (NW) continuous wave (CW) lasers on silicon photonic crystal in the telecom-band with direct modulation at 10 Gb/s by optical pumping at cryogenic temperatures. To estimate the small signal response and pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS) modulation of our CW lasers, we employed a new signal detection technique that employs a superconducting single photon detector and a time-correlated single photon counting module. The results showed that our NW laser was unambiguously modulated at above 10 Gb/s and an open eye pattern was obtained. This is the first demonstration of a telecom-band CW NW laser with high-speed PRBS modulation.