Hybrid III-V Silicon Photonic Crystal Cavity Emitting at Telecom Wavelengths

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel hybrid III-V/Si photonic crystal cavity that integrates active gain materials with silicon photonics, enabling room-temperature emission across the telecom band for integrated light sources.

Contribution

The work introduces a new hybrid III-V/Si photonic crystal cavity using template-assisted selective epitaxy for in-plane integration and broadband emission at telecom wavelengths.

Findings

Demonstrated room-temperature emission from 1.2 to 1.6 μm

Achieved in-plane integration of III-V gain material with silicon

Validated potential for fully integrated silicon-based light sources

Abstract

Photonic crystal (PhC) cavities are promising candidates for Si photonics integrated circuits due to their ultrahigh quality (Q)-factors and small mode volumes. Here, we demonstrate a novel concept of a one-dimensional hybrid III-V/Si PhC cavity which exploits a combination of standard silicon-on-insulator technology and active III-V materials. Using template-assisted selective epitaxy, the central part of a Si PhC lattice is locally replaced with III-V gain material. The III-V material is placed to overlap with the maximum of the cavity mode field profile, while keeping the major part of the PhC in Si. The selective epitaxy process enables growth parallel to the substrate and hence, in-plane integration with Si, and in-situ in-plane homo- and heterojunctions. The fabricated hybrid III-V/Si PhCs show emission over the entire telecommunication band from 1.2 {\mu}m to 1.6 {\mu}m at room temperature validating the device concept and its potential towards fully integrated light sources on silicon.