Heterostructure and Q-factor engineering for low-threshold and persistent nanowire lasing

Stefan Skalsky; Yunyan Zhang; Juan Arturo Alanis; H Aruni Fonseka; Ana M Sanchez; Huiyun Liu; Patrick Parkinson

doi:10.1038/s41377-020-0279-y

Heterostructure and Q-factor engineering for low-threshold and persistent nanowire lasing

Light Sci Appl. 2020 Mar 17:9:43. doi: 10.1038/s41377-020-0279-y. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Stefan Skalsky¹, Yunyan Zhang², Juan Arturo Alanis¹, H Aruni Fonseka³, Ana M Sanchez³, Huiyun Liu², Patrick Parkinson¹

Affiliations

¹ 1Department of Physics and Astronomy and The Photon Science Institute, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL UK.
² 2Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University College London, London, WC1E 7JE UK.
³ 3Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL UK.

Abstract

Continuous room temperature nanowire lasing from silicon-integrated optoelectronic elements requires careful optimisation of both the lasing cavity Q-factor and population inversion conditions. We apply time-gated optical interferometry to the lasing emission from high-quality GaAsP/GaAs quantum well nanowire laser structures, revealing high Q-factors of 1250 ± 90 corresponding to end-facet reflectivities of R = 0.73 ± 0.02. By using optimised direct-indirect band alignment in the active region, we demonstrate a well-refilling mechanism providing a quasi-four-level system leading to multi-nanosecond lasing and record low room temperature lasing thresholds (~6 μJ cm^-2 pulse^-1) for III-V nanowire lasers. Our findings demonstrate a highly promising new route towards continuously operating silicon-integrated nanolaser elements.

Keywords: Fluorescence spectroscopy; Nanowires; Semiconductor lasers.