Semiconductor micro- and nano-cavities are excellent platforms for experimental studies of optical cavities, lasing dynamics, and cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). Common materials for such experiments are narrow bandgap semiconductor materials with well-developed epitaxial growth technologies, such as GaAs and InP, among others. Gallium nitride (GaN) and its alloys are industrially viable materials with wide direct bandgaps, low surface re-combination velocities, and large exciton binding energies, offering the possibility of room temperature realization of light-matter interaction. Controlling light-matter interaction is at the heart of nanophotonic research which leads to ultra-low threshold lasing, photonic qubits, and optical strong coupling. Technologically, due to its blue emission, GaN photonic cavities with indium gallium nitride (InGaN) active mediums serve as efficient light sources for the fast growing photonic industry, optical computing and communication networks, display technology, as well as quantum information processing.
The main challenges in fabricating high quality GaN cavity are due to its chemical inertness and low material quality as a result of strain-induced defects and threading dislocations. In this dissertation, I examine the designs, novel fabrication processes, and characterizations of high quality factor GaN microdisk and photonic crystal nanobeam cavities with different classes of InGaN active medium, namely quantum dots (QDs), quantum wells (QWs), and fragmented quantum wells (fQWs), for investigating light-matter interaction between cavity and these active media.
This dissertation is carefully organized into four chapters. Chapter 1 outlines the background of the research, the materials and growth, and the necessary technique Photoelectrochemical (PEC) etching which is uniquely used to undercut and suspend GaN cavities.
Chapter 2 outlines the fabrications, optical experiments, and tuning technique developed for GaN/InGaN microdisks. Microdisks are circular resonant cavities that support whispering gallery modes. Through the use of optimized dry etching and PEC, high quality factor microdisks with relatively small modal volume are fabricated with immediate demonstration of low threshold lasing. On the path to achieving light and matter interactions, irreversible tuning of the cavity mode of p-i-n doped GaN/InGaN microdisks is achieved through photo-excitation in a water environment. Such a technique paves the way for deterministically and spectrally matching the cavity mode to the emitter’s principle emission.
Chapter 3 outlines the work done on the high quality GaN photonic crystal nanobeams with InGaN QDs and fQWs. The fragmented nature of the fQW layer has a surprisingly dramatic influence on the lasing threshold. A record low threshold is demonstrated that is an order of magnitude lower in threshold than identical nanobeams with homogeneous QW, and comparable to the best devices in other III-V material systems. As an active medium with greater carrier confinement than quantum wells, and higher carrier capture probability than quantum dots, the fQW active medium, in combination with the nanobeam cavity with ultra-small modal volume and high quality factor, provides an ideal means of probing the limits of light and matter interactions in the nanoscale. Moreover, GaN/InGaN nanopillars are fabricated to isolate a single InGaN QD for understanding its emission properties. Antibunching is observed, demonstrating the quantum nature of the QD emission. Gas tuning is attempted on GaN nanobeams with InGaN QDs to achieve QD-cavity mode coupling and to demonstrate cavity enhanced single photon emission. Last but not least, Chapter 4 concludes the dissertation with summary and future directions.Engineering and Applied Sciences - Applied Physic
