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Room-temperature continuous-wave electrically injected InGaN-based laser directly grown on Si

Nature Photonics volume 10, pages 595–599 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Silicon photonics would greatly benefit from efficient, visible on-chip light sources that are electrically driven at room temperature1,2. To fully utilize the benefits of large-scale, low-cost manufacturing foundries, it is highly desirable to grow direct bandgap III-V semiconductor lasers directly on Si3,4,5. Here, we report the demonstration of a blue–violet (413 nm) InGaN-based laser diode grown directly on Si that operates under continuous-wave current injection at room temperature, with a threshold current density of 4.7 kA cm–2. The heteroepitaxial growth of GaN on Si is confronted with a large mismatch in both the lattice constant and the coefficient of thermal expansion, often resulting in a high density of defects and even microcrack networks. By inserting an Al-composition step-graded AlN/AlGaN multilayer buffer between the Si and GaN, we have not only successfully eliminated crack formation, but also effectively reduced the dislocation density. The result is the realization of a blue–violet InGaN-based laser on Si.

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Figure 1: Schematic architecture of InGaN-based LD directly grown on Si.
Figure 2: Cross-sectional TEM images of an InGaN-based LD directly grown on Si.
Figure 3: Microstructure, crystalline quality, defect analysis, and surface morphology.
Figure 4: Characteristics of an InGaN-based LD grown on Si.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Key Research and Development Program (Grant No. 2016YFB0400104), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61534007, 61404156, 61522407 and U1501241), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Science (Grant No. XDA09020401), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK20160401), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2016M591944) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Visiting Professorship for Senior International Scientists (Grant No. 2013T2J0048). This work was also supported by the open fund of the State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Applications (Grant No. SKLA-2016-01) and the seed fund from SINANO, CAS (Grant No. Y5AAQ51001). We are thankful for the technical support from Nano Fabrication Facility, Platform for Characterization & Test, Nano-X of SINANO, CAS, M. Niu's assistance in TEM imaging and J. Han's help in proofreading.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Nanodevices and Applications, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics (SINANO), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Suzhou, 215123, China

    Yi Sun, Kun Zhou, Qian Sun, Jianping Liu, Meixin Feng, Zengcheng Li, Yu Zhou, Liqun Zhang, Deyao Li, Shuming Zhang, Masao Ikeda & Hui Yang

  2. School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Yi Sun

  3. School of Power and Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Sheng Liu

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Contributions

Q.S., H.Y. and S.L. proposed and coordinated the overall project. Q.S., M.I., J.L. and S.Z. proposed the epitaxial structure. K.Z., J.L. and M.F. performed the simulation. Q.S. and Z.L. grew the GaN-on-Si template, K.Z., Y.S., Q.S., J.L., M.F. and M.I. carried out the LD epitaxial growth. Y.S., M.F., Y.Z., L.Z. and S.Z. fabricated the GaN-on-Si LD devices. Y.S., K.Z., Y.Z., Z.L. and D.L. measured the GaN-on-Si LD devices. Y.S., Q.S. and H.Y. composed and revised the manuscript. S.L. and M.I. proofread the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qian Sun.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Sun, Y., Zhou, K., Sun, Q. et al. Room-temperature continuous-wave electrically injected InGaN-based laser directly grown on Si. Nature Photon 10, 595–599 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2016.158

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