Surface-emitting lasers for communications: novel metal-cavity microlasers and high-contrast-grating tunable VCSELs

Abstract

A comprehensive study of the theory and experiments of surface-emitting semiconductor lasers is presented. The design of novel micro and nanolasers using metal cavities for optical confinement is discussed. Theoretical modeling of quantum-well and quantum-dot emission properties, as well as experimental characterization of their coupling with optical cavities, are presented. Lasing behavior of our designed and fabricated devices is demonstrated at room temperature under continuous-wave and pulsed electrical injection with 3-μm and 1-μm cavity diameters, respectively. This work provides the research path toward dense-integrable power-efficient on-chip light sources. Surface-emitting tunable lasers for high-speed, long-haul communication are investigated. Novel laser designs using micro-electro-mechanical system controlled high-contrast gratings as tunable mirrors are presented. Rigorous, accurate, and efficient electromagnetic models for high-contrast gratings are developed. Our model enables us to design high-contrast gratings as one-dimensional or two-dimensional metastructures integrable on surface-emitting lasers. A wide range of optical functionalities such as broadband reflection, high-Q resonance, filtering, beam-steering, focusing, beam-conversion, and generation of photon orbital angular momentum are achieved. Our optical model is integrated with our laser cavity model and the rate equation model to predict the temperature-dependent voltage tunable light output intensity and spectra. Future design and experimental strategies for heterogeneously integrated tunable surface-emitting lasers are discussed