GaN-based ultraviolet microdisk laser diode grown on Si

Abstract

This work reports a demonstration of electrically injected GaN-based near-ultraviolet microdisk laser diodes with a lasing wavelength of 386.3 nm at room temperature. The crack-free laser structure was epitaxially grown on Si substrates using an Al-composed down-graded AlN/AlGaN multilayer buffer to mitigate the mismatches in the lattice constant and coefficient of thermal expansion, and processed into “sandwich-like” microdisk structures with a radius of 12 μm. Air-bridge electrodes were successfully fabricated to enable the device electrical characterization. The electrically pumped lasing of the as-fabricated microdisk laser diodes was evidenced by the rapid narrowing down of electroluminescence spectra and dramatic increase in the light output power, as the current exceeded the threshold of 248 mA.