Analysis and design of a Germanium multi-quantum well metal strip nanocavity plasmon laser

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel germanium multi-quantum well nanocavity plasmon laser integrated with a waveguide, demonstrating high output power, significant field confinement, and wide modulation bandwidth for potential on-chip plasmonic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a new waveguide integrated nanocavity plasmon laser design with enhanced performance metrics and detailed simulation analysis, advancing the development of reliable on-chip plasmon sources.

Findings

Achieved a 2.8 μW output power at 10 μA injection current.

Demonstrated a 4.16 mW output power at 27 mA threshold pump current.

Maintains a wide modulation bandwidth of 178 GHz.

Abstract

In order to achieve electrically pumped plasmon nano lasers, several structures, materials and methods, have been proposed recently. However, there is still a long way to find out a reliable appropriate on-chip plasmon source for commercial plasmonic integrated circuits. In this paper, a new waveguide integrated nanocavity plasmon laser is proposed for 1550 nm free-space wavelength. Due to its significant field confinement resulted by the metal strip structure and strong interaction of plasmonic modes with the germanium quantum wells and as a result a considerable Purcell factor about 291, this structure has a remarkable output performance. Using semi-classical rate equations in combination with finite difference time domain (FDTD) cavity mode analysis, the output performance measures are estimated and confirmed with respect to various physical models and simulation tools. Simulation results for this tiny structure (0.073 um2 area) show a 2.8uW output power with 10uA injection current and about 4.16mW output power with the threshold pump current of 27mA while maintaining its performance in a wide modulation bandwidth of 178GHz.