Design of an 845-nm GaAs Vertical-Cavity Silicon-Integrated Laser with an Intracavity Grating for Coupling to a SiN Waveguide Circuit

Abstract

A short-wavelength hybrid GaAs vertical-cavity silicon-integrated laser (VCSIL) with in-plane waveguide coupling has been designed and optimized using numerical simulations. A shallow etched silicon nitride (SiN) grating is placed inside the cavity of the hybrid vertical-cavity silicon-integrated laser to both set the polarization state of the resonant optical field and to enable output coupling to a SiN waveguide with high efficiency. The numerical simulations predict that for apertures of 4 and 6-μm oxide-confined VCSILs operating at 845-nm wavelength, a slope efficiency for the light coupled to the waveguide of 0.18 and 0.22 mW/mA is achievable, respectively, while maintaining a low threshold gain of 583 and 589 cm-1, respectively, for the lasing.

Keywords

• Waveguide
• gratings
• silicon nanophotonics
• semiconductor lasers.