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1.3 M Resonant-Cavity InGaAs-GaAs Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Devices
1.3 M Resonant-Cavity InGaAs-GaAs Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Devices
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Abstract
Different types of microcavities for GaAs-based light emitting devices
operating in the 1.3 µm spectral range are analysed. Microcavity
light-emitting diodes (MC LEDs) can be fabricated with different designs of
distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs), e.g.: top and bottom AlAs/GaAs
semiconductor DBRs; bottom AlAs/GaAs semiconductor and top dielectric
DBRs; and oxidized Alx Oy /GaAs DBRs. MC LEDs operating in the 1.3 µm
spectral range and characterized by spectral width (13 nm) and narrow
far-field pattern (<20 degrees) are reported. In the case of vertical-cavity
surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), practical implementation of injection
lasing can be only achieved with oxidized Alx Oy /GaAs DBRs, despite the
fact that DBRs with nominally comparable parameters can be fabricated. It
is shown that the 1.3 µm InAs/InGaAs quantum dot (QD) VCSEL exhibits
remarkably low internal losses, compared with QD VCSELs operating near
1 µm. This enables use of high-reflectance DBRs, important for lasing in
low modal gain media, with high (>40%) differential efficiency retained. A
threshold current of <2 mA at 300 K is achieved (λ = 1.304 µm).
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VCSEL fabrication. However, low internal losses may provide with QDs ● ● ●
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a sufficient efficiency.
2. Experimental
GaAs/AlAs
All the structures were grown by molecular beam epitaxy DBR
(MBE) on (001)GaAs substrates in a RIBER 32 chamber.
Test and MC LED structures were equipped with 33-period
bottom AlAs/GaAs distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). In
the test structures, three layers of InAs/InGaAs QDs [16] GaAs
separated by 25 nm GaAs spacers were placed at the centre substr.
of a 1λ undoped GaAs cavity (λ is the resonance wavelength).
For MC LED structures, we used a 2λ cavity with the same (b)
active region. On both sides of the active region, short-
period Al0.25 Ga0.75 As/GaAs superlattices (SL) with effective GaAs/AlO
DBR
thickness of λ/4 were placed as emitters. Two last pairs of the
AlAs/GaAs DBR and the bottom part of the cavity (including
the short-period SL) were n-doped with Si, while the top part
of the cavity (including the short-period SL) was p-doped
Cavity ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲▲▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲
with Be. MC LED structures were completed with 2 pairs of with QDs
Al0.25 Ga0.75 As:Be/GaAs:Be DBRs necessary for better current
spreading. The top mirror was formed by thermal deposition of
ZrO2 /SiO2 DBR for both the test and the MC LED structures
(figure 1(a)). In the VCSEL structure, the role of mirrors GaAs/AlO
was played by Alx Oy /GaAs DBRs (5 and 7.5 periods for, DBR
respectively, the top and bottom DBRs) fabricated by post-
growth oxidation of AlAs layers. The symmetrical 5λ cavity
consisted of a 7/4λ GaAs:(Si or Be) layer adjoining the DBRs,
λ/4 AlAs:(Si or Be) layers linearly graded to GaAs on both GaAs
sides and central undoped GaAs layer. Three sheets of QDs substr.
were also placed at the cavity centre (figure 1(b)).
For both the MC LED and the VCSEL devices, intracavity Figure 1. Schematic view of MC LED (a) and VCSEL (b).
contacts were used. In MC LED devices, current confinement
was achieved by proton implantation, with aperture oxidation
states through QD size fluctuations is 55 nm (40 meV). Placing
serving this purpose in the VCSEL structure. In more
the QDs in a microcavity can strongly affect the PL spectra,
detail the device fabrication is described elsewhere [17,
with their broadening depending only on microcavity’s finesse.
18]. Photoluminescence (PL) was excited by an Ar+ laser
Raising the finesse by using a top dielectric DBR with varied
(100 W cm−2 ). The light of a tungsten lamp was used
number of pairs results in a strong narrowing of the PL spectra
for optical reflectivity (OR) measurements. A double-pass
(down to 4 nm) for a high-finesse microcavity (figure 2(a)).
monochromator and a Ge-photodetector were used together
The full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the PL spectra
with a lock-in detecting system. The laser operated in the
corresponds to that of the dip in the OR spectra (figure 2(b)),
pulse regime with an off-duty factor of 10.
inversely proportional to the microcavity’s finesse.
In these experiments, we observed that the decrease in
3. Results and discussion the FWHM of the dip tends to a constant value of 4 nm
after deposition of 5–6 pairs of dielectric DBRs. This can
3.1. Photoluminescence and optical reflection from be accounted for by the nonideality of the bottom AlAs/GaAs
structures with quantum dots in a microcavity DBR, caused by fluctuations of the quarter-wavelength layer
thickness. The actual reflectance of the mirrors can be obtained
A typical PL spectrum of InAs/InGaAs QDs emitting at 1.3 µm
from the following equation [10]:
is presented in figure 2(a). This spectrum was obtained from a
satellite structure comprising only a QD active region without Nλ/2
any DBR. It can be clearly seen that this PL spectrum consists Rt Rb = 1 − 2π (1)
Q
of two peaks corresponding to the ground and excited states
of QDs (the results of digital peak analysis are represented by where Rt and Rb are the reflectivities of the top and bottom
broken curves). The inhomogeneous broadening of the ground DBRs, Nλ/2 is the effective order of the cavity, and Q is the
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(a) (b) (a) (b)
846
1.3 µm resonant-cavity InGaAs/GaAs QD light-emitting devices
250 50 4. Conclusion
0 0 Acknowledgments
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
Current (mA)
This work was supported by NanOp, the Russian Foundation
Figure 4. Output power (full curve) and differential quantum for Basic Research, the Volkswagen Foundation, INTAS,
efficiency (broken curve) versus drive current for VCSEL at room and the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Dr
temperature. Inset shows an EL spectrum taken at I = 1.05Ith . H R Schlossberg). NNL acknowledges support from the
DAAD Guest Professorship.
achieved by making larger the number of pairs, results in a
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