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Abstract: We report on the development of high quality, strain compensated gain mirror for 1120nm vertical external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs). The gain mirror was grown by molecular beam epitaxy and comprised a total of six Ga0.69In0.31As quantum wells. The effect of the strain compensation has been assessed by measuring the curvature of the wafer and by mapping the photoluminescence to identify the non-emissive dark areas. We demonstrate that ∼91% strain compensation with GaAs0.85P0.15 is sufficient to remove the dark lines corresponding to areas with structural defects in the gain mirror structure. Rapid thermal annealing studies revealed that the strain compensation is efficient in preventing the appearance of dark lines even for samples that were annealed at temperatures as high as 700°C for a considerable time. The strain compensated gain mirror was used to demonstrate a VECSEL emitting at 1120nm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Several passivation techniques are developed and compared in terms of their ability to preserve the optical properties of close-to-surface InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs). In particular, the influence of N-passivation by hydrazine chemical treatment, N-passivation by hydrazine followed by atomic layer deposition (ALD) of AlOx and use of AlNx deposited by plasma-enhanced ALD are reported. The effectiveness of the passivation is benchmarked by measuring the emission linewidths and decay rates of photo-carriers for the near-surface QDs. All three passivation mechanisms resulted in reducing the oxidation of Ga and As atoms at the GaAs surface and consequently in enhancing the room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) intensity. However, long-term stability of the passivation effect is exhibited only by the hydrazine + AlOx process and more significantly by the AlNx method. Moreover, in contrast to the results obtained from hydrazine-based methods, the AlNx passivation strongly reduces the spectral diffusion of the QD exciton lines caused by charge fluctuations at the GaAs surface. The AlNx passivation is found to reduce the surface recombination velocity by three orders of magnitude (corresponding to an increase of room-temperature PL signal by ∼1030 times). The reduction of surface recombination velocity is demonstrated on surface-sensitive GaAs (100) and the passivating effect is stable for more than one year. This effective method of passivation, coupled with its stability in time, is extremely promising for practical device applications such as quantum light sources based on InAs/GaAs QDs positioned in small-volume photonic cavities and hence in the proximity of GaAs-air interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamental thermodynamic considerations reveal that efficient emission from an electrically injected light emitting diode (LED) can lead to the cooling of the device. This effect, known as electroluminescent (EL) cooling, has been identified decades ago, but it has not been experimentally demonstrated in semiconductors at practical operating conditions due to the extreme requirements set for the efficiency of the light emission. To probe the conditions of EL cooling in GaAs based light emitters, we have designed and fabricated LED structures with integrated photodiodes (PDs), where the optically mediated thermal energy transport between the LED and the PD can be easily monitored. This allows characterization of the fundamental properties of the LED and a path for eliminating selected issues encountered in conventional approaches for EL cooling, such as the challenging light extraction. Despite several remaining nonidealities, our setup demonstrates a very high directly measured quantum efficiency of 70%. To characterize the bulk part of the LED, we also employ a model for estimating the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the LED, without the contribution of non-fundamental nonidealities such as photodetection losses. Our results suggest that the PCE of the LED peaks at around 105–115%, exceeding the 100% barrier required to reach the EL cooling regime by a clear margin. This implies that the LED component in our device is in fact cooling down by transporting thermal energy carried by the emitted photons to the PD. This provides a compelling incentive for further study to confirm the result and to find ways to extend it for practically useful EL cooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a simulation-based analysis of laterally-corrugated ridge-waveguide distributed feedback semiconductor lasers emitting at 980 nm. The simulations were performed using software developed in-house and the PICS3D software package from Crosslight Software Inc. The effects of the corrugation geometry, phase-shift section, and mirror reflectivities on single longitudinal mode operation are discussed. The lasers, designed along the guidelines derived from the simulation results, were fabricated by using molecular beam epitaxy for wafer growth and low-cost nano-imprint lithography. They exhibited stable single-mode operation with up to 50 dB side-mode suppression ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]