Ultralow threshold nanolasers have been sought after as power efficient light sources in photonic integrated circuits. Here a single-cell nanobeam laser with a nanoisland quantum well is proposed and demonstrated. Continuous operation at 1.5 μm is achieved at room temperature with an ultralow lasing threshold of 210 nW in absorbed power. The size of the active medium is reduced to 0.7 × 0.25 × 0.02 μm3 by removing the absorptive quantum well region surrounding the central cavity. Relatively thick (420 nm) InP slabs are employed to improve the thermal and mechanical characteristics. The nanoisland-based structures will provide a new platform to engineer fundamental light–matter interactions by controlling the size and the location of the nanoemitters, allowing the realization of highly efficient nanophotonic devices.
We report a novel scheme for monolithic integration of a nanoisland laser with a shifted-air-hole waveguide by employing selective etching techniques. An active L3 laser cavity and passive shifted-air-hole waveguide are simultaneously formed through a single fabrication step. In the shifted-air-hole waveguide, the air-hole position is adjusted to be compatible with selective etching. The spectral overlap between the L3 laser resonance and guided mode is achieved by introducing small air holes at the nodes of the shifted-air-hole waveguide. Experiments show that >60% of the light is coupled from the nanoisland laser to the end of the 12-μm-long waveguide.
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