Gallium Arsenide Photonic Integrated Circuit Platform for Tunable Laser Applications

An active-passive integration technique for operation near a wavelength of 1030 nm has been developed on a gallium arsenide (GaAs) photonic integrated circuit platform. The technique leverages quantum wells (QWs) that are slightly offset vertically from the center of the waveguide, and selectively removed prior to upper cladding regrowth to form active and passive regions. The active region consists of indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) QWs, gallium arsenide phosphide (GaAsP) barriers, GaAs separate confinement heterostructure layers, and aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) cladding. Fabry Perot lasers with various widths were fabricated and characterized, exhibiting high injection efficiency of 98.8%, internal active loss of 3.44 cm-1, and internal passive loss of 4.05 cm-1for 3 μm wide waveguides. The 3 μm, 4 μm, and 5 μm wide lasers demonstrated greater than 50 mW output power at 100 mA continuous wave (CW) current and threshold current as low as 9 mA. 20 μm wide broad area lasers demonstrated 240 mW output power, 35.2 mA threshold current under CW operation, and low threshold current density of 94 A/cm2for 2 mm long lasers. Additionally, these devices exhibit transparency current density of 85 A/cm2and good thermal characteristics with T0= 205 K, and Tη= 577K.