Waveguide-coupled nanopillar metal-cavity light-emitting diodes on silicon.
Nanoscale light sources using metal cavities have been proposed to enable high integration density, efficient operation at low energy per bit and ultra-fast modulation, which would make them attractive for future low-power optical interconnects. For this application, such devices are required to be efficient, waveguide-coupled and integrated on a silicon substrate. We demonstrate a metal-cavity light-emitting diode coupled to a waveguide on silicon. The cavity consists of a metal-coated III-V semiconductor nanopillar which funnels a large fraction of spontaneous emission into the fundamental mode of an InP waveguide bonded to a silicon wafer showing full compatibility with membrane-on-Si photonic integration platforms. The device was characterized through a grating coupler and shows on-chip external quantum efficiency in the 10-4-10-2range at tens of microamp current injection levels, which greatly exceeds the performance of any waveguide-coupled nanoscale light source integrated on silicon in this current range. Furthermore, direct modulation experiments reveal sub-nanosecond electro-optical response with the potential for multi gigabit per second modulation speeds.
Photonic Integration, Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
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Dolores-Calzadilla
Photonics and Semiconductor Nanophysics, Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
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Romeira
Photonics and Semiconductor Nanophysics, Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
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F
Pagliano
Photonics and Semiconductor Nanophysics, Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
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S
Birindelli
Photonic Integration, Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
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Higuera-Rodriguez
NanoLab@TU/e, Eindhoven University of Technology, Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
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van Veldhoven
Photonic Integration, Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
M K
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Smit
Photonics and Semiconductor Nanophysics, Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
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Fiore
Photonic Integration, Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
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D
Heiss