Novel Photonic Chip Advancements Opens Up New Market Opportunities

In a study published in Light: Science & Applications, researchers from Australian National University and Northwestern Polytechnical University describe a method for producing high-quality multi-quantum well nanowires from the semiconductor materials indium gallium arsenide and indium phosphide.

Image Credit: narong sutinkham/Shutterstock.com

Researchers at TMOS, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, have discovered a novel engineering approach to on-chip light sources that might lead to the widespread use of photonic chips in consumer devices.

Optical information transfer is faster and more efficient than electrical transmission, which is why the photonic chip industry has grown rapidly over the last decade. These chips, also called photonic integrated circuits, can now be found in telecommunications equipment, self-driving cars, biosensors, and consumer electronics like mobile phones.

The absence of an on-chip light source is a significant limitation of contemporary photonic devices. Currently, these chips require an external light source, hindering future downsizing of the chips and the devices they power.

Nanowire lasers are an appealing possibility for these light sources. However, producing high-quality nanowires with smooth sidewalls, regulated diameters, and accurate crystal composition at ambient temperature has proven problematic on a large scale.

TMOS researchers and partners have devised a novel multi-step facet engineering strategy for nanowire development that employs selective area epitaxy using metalorganic chemical vapor deposition.

Through this new method of epitaxial growth, we can precisely control the diameter and length of quantum well nanowires with high crystal quality and uniform morphology. This makes it possible to design controllable nanowire optical cavities, thereby enabling the regulation of spatial modes and longitudinal modes. Then, by modulating the composition and thickness of quantum wells in the nanowires, the lasing wavelength of the nanowires can be adjusted, achieving coverage of a wide spectral range in the near-infrared telecommunication band.

Fanlu Zhang, Study Co-First Author, and Ph.D. Student, ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems

Co-first author Xutao Zhang added, “The technology we present is well-suited for large-scale epitaxial growth of uniform nanowire arrays. It will enable the batch construction of nanoscale laser light sources in the near-infrared telecommunication band. This approach has the potential to overcome the obstacles associated with traditional methods of fabricating on-chip integrated light sources through bonding or heterogeneous epitaxy, demonstrating a promising path for large-scale photonic integration.”

“This is significant progress towards on-chip light sources and the growth of the photonic chip industry. Importantly, it sets the scene for the mass manufacture of these devices. The next step for this research will be to design and fabricate electrical contacts to achieve electrical injected lasing,” TMOS Chief Investigator Lan Fu concluded.

Journal Reference:

Zhang, X., et. al. (2024) Telecom-band multiwavelength vertical emitting quantum well nanowire laser arrays. Light: Science & Applications. doi.org/10.1038/s41377-024-01570-7