Ultra-High-Capacity Optical Communications and Networking: "Integrated photonic crystal/quantum dot chip for wavelength division multiplexed fiber optic transceivers"

该提案是根据“超高容量光通信和网络”招标NSF 01-65提交的。半导体制造技术已经发展到现在可以制造革命性的新器件，为光纤互连带来新的功能和应用。其中两项新技术，光子晶体和自组织量子点（QDs），使纳米结构材料的协同匹配变得特别有趣。光子晶体缺陷使超小型半导体微腔具有三维模式限制，本质上设置了光源的波长。它们还提供了一种机制，在元件之间的急转弯处将芯片上的光信号路由，例如将几个激光源的输出多路复用为单个光输出。由于这些独特的特性，光子晶体使一种新型的单片集成芯片技术非常适合于波分复用（WDM）。这种新的芯片技术为用于超高带宽光纤通信的低成本、高性能、超小型收发器提供了革命性的进步。这种WDM芯片技术可以很容易地提供超过100gb /秒的单光纤带宽。在这里，我们建议演示这种芯片的多波长源。我们建议设计并演示一个纳米光子WDM源，该源是一个多波长激光阵列，其中阵列的每个元素由耦合光子晶体缺陷腔组成，在单个波长发射，具有量子点活跃区域。这项工作依赖于光子晶体的设计和纳米制造，用于光学模式定义和定义阵列元件输出波长的能力。它还依靠量子点来减少或消除表面复合和消除激光啁啾。这个波分复用源将被电抽运。本项目重点发展以下技术：1)电泵浦光子晶体激光器；2)具有量子点有源区和采样光栅光子晶体反射器的高效光子晶体激光器；3)边缘发射多波长光子晶体/量子点激光阵列

This proposal was submitted in response to the solicitation NSF 01-65 on "Ultra-High Capacity Optical Communications and Networking." Semiconductor fabrication technology has advanced to a state where revolutionary new devices can now be fabricated that bring new functionality and applications to fiber optic interconnects. Two of these new technologies, photonic crystals and self-organized quantum dots (QDs), enable a synergistic match of nanostructured materials that are particularly interesting. Photonic crystal defects enable ultra-small semiconductor microcavities with 3-dimensional mode confinement that intrinsically sets the wavelength of the light source. They also provide a mechanism for routing light signals on chip in sharp bends between elements, for example to multiplex the outputs of several laser sources into a single optical output. Because of these unique features, photonic crystals enable a new type of monolithicaliy integrated chip technology ideally suited for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). This new chip technology offers revolutionary advances for low cost, high performance, ultra-small form factor transceivers for ultra-high bandwidth fiber optic communication. Such a WDM chip technology can easily provide single fiber bandwidth in excess of 100 GB/sec.Here we propose to demonstrate the multi-wavelength source for such a chip. We propose to design, and demonstrate a nanophotonic WDM source that is a multi-wavelength laser array in which each element of the array consists of coupled photonic crystal defect cavities emitting at a single wavelength with quantum dot active regions. This work relies on the design and nanofabrication of photonic crystals for the optical mode definition and the ability to define the output wavelength of an array element. It also relies on quantum dots for reducing or eliminating surface recombination and for eliminating the laser chirp. This WDM source is to be electrically pumped. Our program emphasizes the following technological developments1) electrically pumped photonic crystal lasers2) high efficiency photonic crystal lasers with quantum dot active regions and sampled- grating photonic crystal reflectors3) edge-emitting multi-wavelength photonic crystal/quantum dot laser arrays