Integrated mode-locked lasers in a CMOS-compatible silicon photonic platform

CLEO: Science and Innovations 2015 San Jose, California United States 10–15 May 2015 ISBN: 978-1-55752-968-8 From the session: Silicon Photonic Systems (SM2I)The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Integrated components necessary for a mode-locked laser are demonstrated on a platform that allows for monolithic integration with active silicon photonics and CMOS circuitry. CW lasing and Q-switched mode-locking are observed in the full structures.This work was supported under the DARPA E-PHI project, grant no. HR0011-12-2-0007

Monolithically-integrated distributed feedback laser compatible with CMOS processing.

An optically-pumped, integrated distributed feedback laser is demonstrated using a CMOS compatible process, where a record-low-temperature deposited gain medium enables integration with active devices such as modulators and detectors. A pump threshold of 24.9 mW and a slope efficiency of 1.3 % is demonstrated at the lasing wavelength of 1552.98 nm. The rare-earth-doped aluminum oxide, used as the gain medium in this laser, is deposited by a substrate-bias-assisted reactive sputtering process. This process yields optical quality films with 0.1 dB/cm background loss at the deposition temperature of 250 °C, and therefore is fully compatible as a back-end-of-line CMOS process. The aforementioned laser's performance is comparable to previous lasers having gain media fabricated at much higher temperatures (> 550 °C). This work marks a crucial step towards monolithic integration of amplifiers and lasers in silicon microphotonic systems

Octave spanning supercontinuum generation in silicon from 1.1 mu m to beyond 2.4 mu m

We demonstrate an octave spanning coherent supercontinuum generated in a silicon waveguide covering the near to shortwave IR (SWIR) region. The measured -20 dB SC span ranges from 1.124 μm to 2.4 μm