Room temperature all-silicon photonic crystal nanocavity light emitting diode at sub-bandgap wavelengths

Abdul Shakoor*, Roberto Lo Savio, Paolo Cardile, Simone L. Portalupi, Dario Gerace, Karl Peter Welna, Simona Boninelli, Giorgia Franzo, Francesco Priolo, Thomas Fraser Krauss, Matteo Galli, Liam O'Faolain

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Silicon is now firmly established as a high performance photonic material. Its only weakness is the lack of a native electrically driven light emitter that operates CW at room temperature, exhibits a narrow linewidth in the technologically important 1300-1600 nm wavelength window, is small and operates with low power consumption. Here, an electrically pumped all-silicon nano light source around 1300-1600 nm range is demonstrated at room temperature. Using hydrogen plasma treatment, nano-scale optically active defects are introduced into silicon, which then feed the photonic crystal nanocavity to enhance the electrically driven emission in a device via Purcell effect. A narrow (Delta lambda = 0.5 nm) emission line at 1515 nm wavelength with a power density of 0.4 mW/cm(2) is observed, which represents the highest spectral power density ever reported from any silicon emitter. A number of possible improvements are also discussed, that make this scheme a very promising light source for optical interconnects and other important silicon photonics applications.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)114-121
Number of pages8
JournalLaser & Photonics Reviews
Volume7
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2013

Keywords

  • nano light sources
  • silicon light emis
  • optically active defects
  • LASER
  • Silicon photonics
  • photonic crystal cavity

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