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A silicon-compatible light source is the final missing piece for completing high-speed, low-power on-chip optical interconnects. In this paper, we present a germanium-based light emitter that encompasses all the aspects of potential low-threshold lasers: highly strained germanium gain medium, strain-induced pseudo-heterostructure, and high-Q optical cavity. Our light emitting structure presents greatly enhanced photoluminescence into cavity modes with measured quality factors of up to 2,000. The emission wavelength is tuned over more than 400 nm with a single lithography step. We find increased optical gain in optical cavities formed with germanium under high (>2.3%) tensile strain. Through quantitative analysis of gain/loss mechanisms, we find that free carrier absorption from the hole bands dominates the gain, resulting in no net gain even from highly strained, n-type doped germanium., J.P. and D.N. contributed equally to this work

We theoretically investigate the effect of uniaxial strain on a Ge-on-Si laser using deformation potentials. We predict a sudden and dramatic ~200x threshold reduction upon applying sufficient uniaxial tensile strain to the Ge gain medium. This anomalous reduction is accompanied by an abrupt jump in the emission wavelength and is explained by how the light-hole band raises relative to the heavy-hole band due to uniaxial strain. Approximately 3.2% uniaxial strain is required to achieve this anomalous threshold reduction for 1x1019 cm-3 n-type doping, and a complex interaction between uniaxial strain and n-type doping is observed. This anomalous threshold reduction represents a substantial performance advantage for uniaxially strained Ge lasers relative to other forms of Ge band engineering such as biaxial strain or tin alloying. Achieving this critical combination of uniaxial strain and doping for the anomalous threshold reduction is dramatically more relevant to practical devices than realizing a direct band gap., 11 pages

Strain engineering has proven to be vital for germanium-based photonics, in particular light emission. However, applying a large permanent biaxial strain to germanium has been a challenge. We present a simple, CMOS-compatible technique to conveniently induce a large, spatially homogenous strain in microdisks patterned within ultrathin germanium nanomembranes. Our technique works by concentrating and amplifying a pre-existing small strain into the microdisk region. Biaxial strains as large as 1.11% are observed by Raman spectroscopy and are further confirmed by photoluminescence measurements, which show enhanced and redshifted light emission from the strained microdisks. Our technique allows the amount of biaxial strain to be customized lithographically, allowing the bandgaps of different microdisks to be independently tuned in a single mask process. Our theoretical calculations show that this platform can deliver substantial performance improvements, including a >200x reduction in the lasing threshold, to biaxially strained germanium lasers for silicon-compatible optical interconnects., 28 pages (19 pages main text + 9 pages supporting information), 10 figures (6 figures main text + 4 figures supporting information)

We theoretically investigate how the threshold of a Ge-on-Si laser can be minimized and how the slope efficiency can be maximized in presence of both biaxial tensile strain and n-type doping. Our finding shows that there exist ultimate limits beyond which point no further benefit can be realized through increased tensile strain or n-type doping. Here were quantify these limits, showing that the optimal design for minimizing threshold involves about 3.7% biaxial tensile strain and 2x1018 cm-3 n-type doping, whereas the optimal design for maximum slope efficiency involves about 2.3% biaxial tensile strain with 1x1019 cm-3 n-type doping. Increasing the strain and/or doping beyond these limits will degrade the threshold or slope efficiency, respectively., 16 pages