III–V nanowire array telecom lasers on (001) silicon-on-insulator photonic platforms

Abstract

III–V nanowires have recently gained attention as a promising approach to enable monolithic integration of ultracompact lasers on silicon. However, III–V nanowires typically grow only along ⟨111⟩ directions, and thus, it is challenging to integrate nanowire lasers on standard silicon photonic platforms that utilize (001) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates. Here, we propose III–V nanowire lasers on (001) silicon photonic platforms, which are enabled by forming one-dimensional nanowire arrays on (111) sidewalls. The one-dimensional photonic crystal laser cavity has a high Q factor >70 000 with a small footprint of ∼7.2 × 1.0 μm2, and the lasing wavelengths can be tuned to cover the entire telecom bands by adjusting the nanowire geometry. These nanowire lasers can be coupled to SOI waveguides with a coupling efficiency > 40% while maintaining a sufficiently high Q factor ∼18 000, which will be beneficial for low-threshold and energy-efficient operations. Therefore, the proposed nanowire lasers could be a stepping stone for ultracompact lasers compatible with standard silicon photonic platforms.