The metal grating design of plasmonic hybrid III-V/Si evanescent lasers

A hybrid III-V/silicon laser design with a metal grating layer inserted in between is proposed and numerically studied. The metal grating layer is buried in a silicon ridge waveguide surrounded by silicon dioxide, and its structural parameters such as periodicity, width and depth can be varied for optimization purpose. The plasmonic effect originated from the grating layer can manage optical fields between III-V and silicon layers in hopes of dimension reduction. The substrate is planarized to minimize the bonding failure. A numerical algorithm with various combinations of metal grating and waveguide structural parameters was created and the optimal design with 730 nm grating period and 600 nm of buried waveguide ridge height was obtained by minimizing the corresponding laser threshold. With top AlInGaAs quantum wells and optimized design of hybrid metal/silicon waveguide, a 0.6 μm threshold gain can be achieved. ©2013 Optical Society of America.