TY - JOUR
T1 - Waveguide-coupled nanopillar metal-cavity light-emitting diodes on silicon
AU - Dolores Calzadilla, V.M.
AU - Patarata Romeira, B.M.
AU - Pagliano, F.
AU - Birindelli, S.
AU - Higuera Rodriguez, A.
AU - van Veldhoven, P.J.
AU - Smit, M.K.
AU - Fiore, A.
AU - Heiss, D.
PY - 2017/2/2
Y1 - 2017/2/2
N2 - 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 â '4-10 â '2 range 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.
AB - 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 â '4-10 â '2 range 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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85011320235&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/ncomms14323
DO - 10.1038/ncomms14323
M3 - Article
C2 - 28148954
VL - 8
SP - 1
EP - 8
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
M1 - 14323
ER -