Fabrication and characterisation of microscale air bridges in conductive gallium nitride

Abstract Fabrication and electrical characterisation of microscale air bridges consisting of GaN heavily doped with silicon is described. These were made from GaN-AlInNGaN epitaxial trilayers on sapphire substrates, in which the AlInN was close to the composition lattice matched to GaN at ∼17% InN fraction. The start of the fabrication sequence used inductively coupled plasma etching with chlorine chemistry to define mesas. In situ monitoring by laser reflectometry indicated an AlInN vertical etch rate of 400 nm/minute, ∼70% of the etch rate of GaN. Processing was completed by lateral wet etching of the AlInN in hot nitric acid to leave GaN microbridges supported between anchor posts at both ends. Deposition of Ti-Au contact pads onto the anchor posts allowed study of the electrical characteristics. At low applied voltages, vertical conduction through the undoped AlInN layers was minimal in comparison with the current path through the Si:GaN bridges. Typical structures showed highly linear currentvoltage characteristics at low applied voltages, and had resistances of 1050 . The observed resistance values are compared with the predicted value based on materials parameters and an idealised geometry. The microbridges showed damage from Joule heating only at current densities above 2 × 10 5 A cm −2

Fabrication and characterisation of microscale air bridges in conductive gallium nitride

Fabrication and electrical characterisation of microscale air bridges consisting of GaN heavily doped with silicon is described. These were made from GaN-AlInN-GaN epitaxial trilayers on sapphire substrates, in which the AlInN was close to the composition lattice matched to GaN at ∼17% InN fraction. The start of the fabrication sequence used inductively coupled plasma etching with chlorine chemistry to define mesas. In situ monitoring by laser reflectometry indicated an AlInN vertical etch rate of 400 nm/minute, ∼70% of the etch rate of GaN. Processing was completed by lateral wet etching of the AlInN in hot nitric acid to leave GaN microbridges supported between anchor posts at both ends. Deposition of Ti-Au contact pads onto the anchor posts allowed study of the electrical characteristics. At low applied voltages, vertical conduction through the undoped AlInN layers was minimal in comparison with the current path through the Si:GaN bridges. Typical structures showed highly linear current-voltage characteristics at low applied voltages, and had resistances of 1050 Ω. The observed resistance values are compared with the predicted value based on materials parameters and an idealised geometry. The microbridges showed damage from Joule heating only at current densities above 2×105 A cm−2

Micro-pixellated flip-chip inGaN and allnGaN light emitting diodes

Flip-chip GaN-based micro-LED arrays have been fabricated consisting of 256 (16 x 16) micropixels, each of diameter 72μm. Output characteristics are compared to broad-area reference LED devices fabricated from the same wafers

Cascadability assessment of a 2R regenerator based on a saturable absorber and a semiconductor optical amplifier in a path switchable recirculating loop

We assess a new 2R regenerator based on a microcavity saturable absorber and a semiconductor optical amplifier. Cascadability is demonstrated and the impact of regeneration span is studied in a 10-Gb/s two-path recirculating loop. A wavelength study demonstrates the tunability of the device over 13 nm

Micro-pixel flip-chip AlInGaN LED arrays with high CW and nanosecond output power

Flip-chip AlInGaN micro-LED arrays with different wavelengths and pixel diameters have been fabricated, giving, per pixel, CW output power densities up to 32.5W/cm2 at 20mA and pulsed output of up to 150pJ in 36ns pulses

80-Gb/s OTDM system analysis of a vertical microcavity-based saturable absorber for the enhancement of pulse pedestal suppression

In future high-speed optical time-division-multiplexed (OTDM) systems, an important factor that needs to be considered for optical pulse generation schemes is the impact of pulse pedestals on the overall system performance. The results presented in this letter are two-fold; first, the impact due to the height of pulse pedestals in an 80-Gb/s OTDM system are established. Second, a solution is provided to overcome these high pedestal levels through the use of a vertical microcavity saturable absorber, which can significantly reduce the pulse pedestal level and give enhanced system performanc

Analysis of thermal limitations in high-speed microcavity saturable absorber all-optical switching gates

The limitations owing to device heating and thermo-optic effects in high-speed quantum-well microcavity saturable absorber devices are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. A simplified theoretical description of the device electronic, thermal, and optical properties is developed and applied to the modeling of the device switching characteristics for reamplification + reshaping step (2R) all-optical regeneration. These predictions are compared to nonlinear optical measurements performed with switching pulses of fixed duration and variable repetition rate on two devices with significantly different thermal properties. It is shown that proper optimization of the device thermal properties is crucial to avoid the degradation of device performance at high bit rate. It is also shown that the negative effects of optically induced heating on the switching contrast may be compensated to some extent by operating the device on the long wavelength side of the microcavity resonanc

Individually-addressable flip-chip AllnGaN micropixelated light emitting diode arrays with high continuous and nanosecond output power

Micropixelated blue (470nm) and ultraviolet (370nm) AlInGaN light emitting diode arrays have been fabricated in flip-chip format with different pixel diameters (72μm and 30μm at, respectively, 100 and 278 pixels/mm2). Each micro-LED pixel can be individually-addressed and the devices possess a specially designed n-common contact incorporated to ensure uniform current injection and consequently uniform light emission across the array. The flip-chip micro-LEDs show, per pixel, high continuous output intensity of up to 0.55μW/μm2 (55W/cm2) at an injection current density of 10kA/cm2 and can sustain continuous injection current densities of up to 12kA/cm2 before breakdown. We also demonstrate that nanosecond pulsed output operation of these devices with per pixel onaxis average peak intensity up to 2.9μW/μm2 (corresponding to energy of 45pJ per 22ns optical pulse) can be achieved. We investigate the pertinent performance characteristics of these arrays for micro-projection applications, including the prospect of integrated optical pumping of organic semiconductor lasers