title: Schottky MSM junctions for carrier depletion in silicon photonic crystal microcavities.
abstract: Collection of free carriers is a key issue in silicon photonics devices. We show that a lateral metal-semiconductor-metal Schottky junction is an efficient and simple way of dealing with that issue in a photonic crystal microcavity. Using a simple electrode design, and taking into account the optical mode profile, the resulting carrier distribution in the structure is calculated. We show that the corresponding effective free carrier lifetime can be reduced by 50 times when the bias is tuned. This allows one to maintain a high cavity quality factor under strong optical injection. In the fabricated structures, carrier depletion is correlated with transmission spectra and directly visualized by Electron Beam Induced Current pictures. These measurements demonstrate the validity of this carrier extraction principle. The design can still be optimized in order to obtain full carrier depletion at a smaller energy cost.
authors.affiliation: Institut d’Electronique Fondamentale. Bâtiment 220, Univ. Paris Sud CNRS UMR 8622 F-91405 Orsay France.
authors.forename: Laurent-Daniel
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Haret
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Checoury
authors.forename: Fabien
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bayle
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cazier
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Boucaud
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Combrié
authors.forename: Alfredo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de Rossi
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008904:Miniaturization; D017785:Photons; D012666:Semiconductors; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry*; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance / Q000295:instrumentation*
chemical_list: D012825:Silicon