High-brightness lasers on silicon by beam combining

High-brightness lasers are widely used in fields such as spectroscopy, infrared countermeasures, free-space communication, and industrial manufacturing. Integration of a broad-band, multi-spectral laser is made possible by heterogeneously integrating multiple gain materials on one silicon (Si) substrate chip. A single multi-spectral output with high beam quality can be achieved by wavelength beam combining in multiple stages: within the gain bandwidth of each laser material and then coarsely combining each spectral band to a single output waveguide. To make power scaling feasible with this system, heterogeneously integrated lasers spanning the near- to the mid-infrared with corresponding low-loss wavelength beam combining elements on chip must be demonstrated. In this work, a review of multi-spectral lasers integrated on Si is presented and various waveguide materials are discussed for spanning the visible to the mid-infrared. Recent work integrating 2.0μm diode and 4.8μm quantum cascade lasers on Si extend the previously available 1.3μm and 1.5μm diode lasers on Si to the mid-infrared. Spectral beam combining elements for spanning the visible to the mid-infrared with low loss are discussed.

[1]  Yonggang Zhang,et al.  2.4 µm InP-based antimony-free triangular quantum well lasers in continuous-wave operation above room temperature , 2014 .

[2]  Jerry R. Meyer,et al.  Semiconductor optical amplifiers at 2.0‐µm wavelength on silicon , 2017 .

[3]  M. Gorodetsky,et al.  Octave spanning tunable frequency comb from a microresonator. , 2011, Physical review letters.

[4]  John E. Bowers,et al.  1310nm Silicon Evanescent Laser , 2007 .

[5]  John E. Bowers,et al.  Heterogeneous Silicon/III–V Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers , 2016, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[6]  J E Bowers,et al.  Low-loss arrayed waveguide grating at 760 nm. , 2016, Optics letters.

[7]  Mathieu Carras,et al.  Low-loss Ge-rich Si0.2Ge0.8 waveguides for mid-infrared photonics. , 2017, Optics letters.

[8]  Sanja Zlatanovic,et al.  Mid-infrared wavelength conversion in silicon waveguides using ultracompact telecom-band-derived pump source , 2010 .

[9]  Alexander Fang,et al.  Integrated Silicon Photonic Laser Sources for Telecom and Datacom , 2013, 2013 Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition and the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC).

[10]  Manijeh Razeghi,et al.  Room temperature quantum cascade lasers with 27% wall plug efficiency , 2011 .

[11]  Richard A. Soref,et al.  Silicon waveguided components for the long-wave infrared regionThis article was submitted to the spe , 2006 .

[12]  David Chapman,et al.  Uniformity study of wafer-scale InP-to-silicon hybrid integration , 2011 .

[13]  M. Lipson,et al.  Broad-band optical parametric gain on a silicon photonic chip , 2006, Nature.

[14]  E. R. Polovtseva,et al.  The HITRAN2012 molecular spectroscopic database , 2013 .

[15]  H. Driel,et al.  Two-photon absorption and Kerr coefficients of silicon for 850–2200nm , 2007 .

[16]  John E. Bowers,et al.  8 × 8 × 40 Gbps fully integrated silicon photonic network on chip , 2016 .

[17]  William W. Bewley,et al.  Heterogeneously Integrated Distributed Feedback Quantum Cascade Lasers on Silicon , 2016 .

[18]  J. Bowers,et al.  Heterogeneous lasers and coupling to Si₃N₄ near 1060 nm. , 2014, Optics letters.

[19]  Richard A. Soref,et al.  Germanium-on-silicon nitride waveguides for mid-infrared integrated photonics , 2016 .

[20]  John E. Bowers,et al.  Low-Loss Silicon Nitride AWG Demultiplexer Heterogeneously Integrated With Hybrid III–V/Silicon Photodetectors , 2014, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[21]  H. C. Casey,et al.  Variation of intervalence band absorption with hole concentration in p‐type InP , 1984 .

[22]  William W. Bewley,et al.  Quantum cascade laser on silicon , 2016 .

[23]  A. Leinse,et al.  Planar waveguides with less than 0.1 dB/m propagation loss fabricated with wafer bonding. , 2011, Optics express.

[24]  Michael L Davenport,et al.  Low threshold and high speed short cavity distributed feedback hybrid silicon lasers. , 2014, Optics express.

[25]  Gang Li,et al.  The HITRAN 2008 molecular spectroscopic database , 2005 .

[26]  Hai-Feng Liu.  Integrated silicon photonics links for high bandwidth data transportation , 2014, OFC.

[27]  J. Bowers,et al.  Electrically pumped hybrid AlGaInAs-silicon evanescent laser. , 2006, Optics express.

[28]  T. Fan.  Laser beam combining for high-power, high-radiance sources , 2005, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[29]  R. Soref.  Mid-infrared photonics in silicon and germanium , 2010 .

[30]  Claire F. Gmachl,et al.  Mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers , 2012, Nature Photonics.

[31]  Assia Barkai,et al.  Integrated hybrid silicon triplexer. , 2010, Optics express.

[32]  Di Liang,et al.  Recent progress in lasers on silicon , 2010 .

[33]  J. Salisbury,et al.  Emissivity of terrestrial materials in the 3–5 μm atmospheric window☆ , 1992 .

[34]  Nicolas Volet,et al.  Turn-on delay and Auger recombination in long-wavelength vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers , 2010, Photonics Europe.

[35]  Hai-Feng Liu.  Integrated silicon photonics links for high bandwidth data transportation , 2014, OFC 2014.

[36]  Rüdiger Paschotta.  Beam quality deterioration of lasers caused by intracavity beam distortions. , 2006, Optics express.

[37]  A. Siegman,et al.  Analysis of laser beam quality degradation caused by quartic phase aberrations. , 1993, Applied optics.

[38]  Alexander Spott,et al.  Multi-octave spectral beam combiner on ultra-broadband photonic integrated circuit platform. , 2015, Optics express.

[39]  John E. Bowers,et al.  Ring resonator with cascaded arrayed waveguide gratings for accurate insertion loss measurement , 2016, 2016 IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC).

[40]  John Bowers,et al.  Heterogeneously integrated 2.0 μm CW hybrid silicon lasers at room temperature. , 2015, Optics letters.

[41]  G. A. Slack,et al.  Thermal Conductivity of Silicon and Germanium from 3°K to the Melting Point , 1964 .

[42]  T. Barwicz,et al.  Three-dimensional analysis of scattering losses due to sidewall roughness in microphotonic waveguides , 2005, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[43]  John William Strutt,et al.  XV. On the light from the sky, its polarization and colour , 1871 .

[44]  Di Liang,et al.  Low-Temperature, Strong SiO2-SiO2 Covalent Wafer Bonding for III–V Compound Semiconductors-to-Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuits , 2008 .

[45]  John E. Bowers,et al.  Thin film wavelength converters for photonic integrated circuits , 2016 .