Descriptor engineering in machine learning regression of electronic structure properties for 2D materials.

We build new material descriptors to predict the band gap and the work function of 2D materials by tree-based machine-learning models. The descriptor's construction is based on vectorizing property matrices and on empirical property function, leading to mixing features that require low-resource computations. Combined with database-based features, the mixing features significantly improve the training and prediction of the models. We find R[Formula: see text] greater than 0.9 and mean absolute errors (MAE) smaller than 0.23 eV both for the training and prediction. The highest R[Formula: see text] of 0.95, 0.98 and the smallest MAE of 0.16 eV and 0.10 eV were obtained by using extreme gradient boosting for the bandgap and work-function predictions, respectively. These metrics were greatly improved as compared to those of database features-based predictions. We also find that the hybrid features slightly reduce the overfitting despite a small scale of the dataset. The relevance of the descriptor-based method was assessed by predicting and comparing the electronic properties of several 2D materials belonging to new classes (oxides, nitrides, carbides) with those of conventional computations. Our work provides a guideline to efficiently engineer descriptors by using vectorized property matrices and hybrid features for predicting 2D materials properties via ensemble models.

Influence of surface roughness on the lasing characteristics of optically pumped thin-film GaN microdisks.

Optically pumped whispering-gallery mode (WGM) lasing is observed from a thin-film GaN microdisk processed from GaN-on-Si InGaN/GaN multi-quantum well wafers by selective wet-etch removal of the substrate. Compared with thin-film microdisks processed from GaN-on-sapphire wafers through laser lift-off of the sapphire substrate, the exposed surface is significantly smoother as laser-induced damage is avoided, with a root-mean-square roughness of 1.3 nm compared with 5.8 nm of the latter wafer. The ∼8-µm diameter microdisks, fabricated by pattern transfer from a silica microsphere and dry etching, benefit from the surface smoothness to offer superior optical confinement within the cavity. WGM lasing thresholds of ∼2.9 mJ/cm2 and ∼3.5 mJ/cm2 with quality (Q)-factors of ∼3100 and ∼1700 are observed at the peak lasing wavelengths of ∼453 nm and ∼532 nm, respectively, which are significantly better than thin-film microdisks processed from GaN-on-sapphire wafers despite lower internal quantum efficiency, highlighting the importance of surface smoothness in such optical cavities.

GeSnOI mid-infrared laser technology.

GeSn alloys are promising materials for CMOS-compatible mid-infrared lasers manufacturing. Indeed, Sn alloying and tensile strain can transform them into direct bandgap semiconductors. This growing laser technology however suffers from a number of limitations, such as poor optical confinement, lack of strain, thermal, and defects management, all of which are poorly discussed in the literature. Herein, a specific GeSn-on-insulator (GeSnOI) stack using stressor layers as dielectric optical claddings is demonstrated to be suitable for a monolithically integration of planar Group-IV semiconductor lasers on a versatile photonic platform for the near- and mid-infrared spectral range. Microdisk-shape resonators on mesa structures were fabricated from GeSnOI, after bonding a Ge0.9Sn0.1 alloy layer grown on a Ge strain-relaxed-buffer, itself on a Si(001) substrate. The GeSnOI microdisk mesas exhibited significantly improved optical gain as compared to that of conventional suspended microdisk resonators formed from the as-grown layer. We further show enhanced vertical out-coupling of the disk whispering gallery mode in-plane radiation, with up to 30% vertical out-coupling efficiency. As a result, the GeSnOI approach can be a valuable asset in the development of silicon-based mid-infrared photonics that combine integrated sources in a photonic platform with complex lightwave engineering.

Monolithic integration of ultraviolet microdisk lasers into photonic circuits in a III-nitride-on-silicon platform.

Ultraviolet microdisk lasers are integrated monolithically into photonic circuits using a III-nitride-on-silicon platform with gallium nitride (GaN) as the main waveguide layer. The photonic circuits consist of a microdisk and a pulley waveguide, terminated by out-coupling gratings. In this Letter, we measure quality factors up to 3500 under continuous-wave excitation. Lasing is observed from 374 to 399 nm under pulsed excitation, achieving low-threshold energies of 0.14mJ/cm2 per pulse (threshold peak powers of 35kW/cm2). A large peak-to-background dynamic of around 200 is observed at the out-coupling grating for small gaps of 50 nm between the disk and the waveguide. These devices operate at the limit of what can be achieved with GaN in terms of operation wavelength.

Demonstration of critical coupling in an active III-nitride microdisk photonic circuit on silicon.

On-chip microlaser sources in the blue constitute an important building block for complex integrated photonic circuits on silicon. We have developed photonic circuits operating in the blue spectral range based on microdisks and bus waveguides in III-nitride on silicon. We report on the interplay between microdisk-waveguide coupling and its optical properties. We observe critical coupling and phase matching, i.e. the most efficient energy transfer scheme, for very short gap sizes and thin waveguides (g = 45 nm and w = 170 nm) in the spontaneous emission regime. Whispering gallery mode lasing is demonstrated for a wide range of parameters with a strong dependence of the threshold on the loaded quality factor. We show the dependence and high sensitivity of the output signal on the coupling. Lastly, we observe the impact of processing on the tuning of mode resonances due to the very short coupling distances. Such small footprint on-chip integrated microlasers providing maximum energy transfer into a photonic circuit have important potential applications for visible-light communication and lab-on-chip bio-sensors.

Impact of tensile strain on low Sn content GeSn lasing.

In recent years much effort has been made to increase the Sn content in GeSn alloys in order to increase direct bandgap charge carrier recombination and, therefore, to reach room temperature lasing. While being successful for the former, the increase of Sn content is detrimental, leading to increased defect concentrations and a lower thermal budget regarding processing. In this work we demonstrate strong photoluminescence enhancement in low Sn content Ge0.94Sn0.06 layers by implementing tensile strain. Fitting of the calculated photoluminescence spectra to reproduce our experimental results indicates a strain of ~1.45%, induced via an SiNx stressor layer, which is strong enough to transform the investigated layer into a direct bandgap semiconductor. Moreover, theoretical calculations, using the 8-band k·p model, show the advantages of using low Sn content tensile strained GeSn layers in respect to gain and lasing temperature. We show that low Sn content GeSn alloys have a strong potential to enable efficient room temperature lasers on electronic-photonic integrated circuits.

Nonlinearities in GaAs cavities with high CW input powers enabled by photo-oxidation quenching through ALD encapsulation.

We demonstrate that conformal encapsulation using atomic layer deposition of GaAs nano-cavity resonator made of photonic crystal cavity prevents photo-induced oxidation. This improvement allows injecting a large quantity of energy in the resonator without any degradation of the material, thus enabling spectral stability of the resonance. We prove second harmonic and third harmonic generation over more than one decade of pump power variation, thanks to this encapsulation, with a total efficiency (ηSHG = 8.3 × 10-5 W-1 and ηTHG = 1.2 × 10-3 W-2 ) and a large net output energy for both operations (PSHGout=0.2nW and PTHGout=8pW).

Efficient second harmonic generation in low-loss planar GaN waveguides.

We demonstrate low-loss GaN/AlGaN planar waveguides grown by molecular beam epitaxy on sapphire substrates. By using a proper AlGaN cladding layer and reducing surface roughness we reach <1dB/cm propagation losses at 633nm. These low propagation losses allow an efficient second harmonic generation using modal phase matching between a TM0 pump at 1260nm and a TM2 second harmonic at 630nm. A maximal power conversion of 2% is realized with an efficiency of 0.15%·W-1cm-2. We provide a modelling that demonstrates broadband features of GaN/AlGaN platform by showing second harmonic wavelengths tunability from the visible up to the near-infrared spectral region. We discuss drawbacks of modal phase matching and propose a novel solution which allows a drastic improvement of modal overlaps with the help of a planar polarity inversion. This new approach is compatible with low propagation losses and may allow as high as 100%·W-1cm-2 conversion efficiencies in the future.

High-performance and power-efficient 2×2 optical switch on Silicon-on-Insulator.

A compact (15µm × 15µm) and highly-optimized 2×2 optical switch is demonstrated on a CMOS-compatible photonic crystal technology. On-chip insertion loss are below 1 dB, static and dynamic contrast are 40 dB and >20 dB respectively. Owing to efficient thermo-optic design, the power consumption is below 3 mW while the switching time is 1 µs.

High-frequency self-induced oscillations in a silicon nanocavity.

We show that self-induced oscillations at frequencies above GHz and with a high spectral purity can be obtained in a silicon photonic crystal nanocavity under optical pumping. This self-pulsing results from the interplay between the nonlinear response of the cavity and the photon cavity lifetime. We provide a model to analyze the mechanisms governing the onset of self-pulsing, the amplitudes of both fundamental and harmonic oscillations and their dependences versus input power and oscillation frequency. Theoretically, oscillations at frequencies higher than 50 GHz could be achieved in this system.

Schottky MSM junctions for carrier depletion in silicon photonic crystal microcavities.

Collection of free carriers is a key issue in silicon photonics devices. We show that a lateral metal-semiconductor-metal Schottky junction is an efficient and simple way of dealing with that issue in a photonic crystal microcavity. Using a simple electrode design, and taking into account the optical mode profile, the resulting carrier distribution in the structure is calculated. We show that the corresponding effective free carrier lifetime can be reduced by 50 times when the bias is tuned. This allows one to maintain a high cavity quality factor under strong optical injection. In the fabricated structures, carrier depletion is correlated with transmission spectra and directly visualized by Electron Beam Induced Current pictures. These measurements demonstrate the validity of this carrier extraction principle. The design can still be optimized in order to obtain full carrier depletion at a smaller energy cost.

High quality factor in a two-dimensional photonic crystal cavity on silicon-on-insulator.

We propose a design for high quality factor two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal cavities on silicon-on-insulator (SOI). A quality factor of up to 1.2×10(7) with a modal volume of 2.35(λ/n)(3) is simulated. A very high quality factor of 200,000 is experimentally demonstrated for a 2D cavity fabricated on SOI.

All-silicon photonic crystal photoconductor on silicon-on-insulator at telecom wavelength.

We demonstrate an all-silicon photodetector working at telecom wavelength. The device is a simple metal-semiconductor-metal detector fabricated on silicon-on-insulator. A two-dimensional photonic crystal nanocavity (Q=60,000) is used to increase the response that arises from the linear and two-photon absorption of silicon. The responsivity of the detector is about 20 mA/W and its bandwidth is larger than 1 GHz.

Midinfrared absorption measured at a lambda/400 resolution with an atomic force microscope.

Midinfrared absorption can be locally measured using a detection combining an atomic force microscope and a pulsed excitation. This is illustrated for the midinfrared bulk GaAs phonon absorption and for the midinfrared absorption of thin SiO(2) microdisks. We show that the signal given by the cantilever oscillation amplitude of the atomic force microscope follows the spectral dependence of the bulk material absorption. The absorption spatial resolution achieved with microdisks is around 50 nanometer for an optical excitation around 22 micrometer wavelength.

Enhanced spontaneous Raman scattering in silicon photonic crystal waveguides on insulator.

We study the spontaneous Raman scattering in a W1 photonic crystal waveguide on silicon-on-insulator where the lower silica cladding remains. Despite the vertical asymmetry that exists in such a waveguide, we numerically and experimentally show that the propagation losses at the pump and the Stokes wavelengths remain low enough to allow a significant exaltation of the spontaneous Raman scattering. In particular, we observe a reshaping of the Raman spectrum and a more than ten-fold enhancement of the Raman scattering efficiency in a W1 photonic crystal waveguide as compared to a single-mode ridge waveguide.

Two-dimensional photonic crystals with large complete photonic band gaps in both TE and TM polarizations.

Photonic crystals exhibiting a photonic band gap in both TE and TM polarizations are particularly interesting for a better control of light confinement. The simultaneous achievement of large band gaps in both polarizations requires to reduce the symmetry properties of the photonic crystal lattice. In this letter, we propose two different designs of two-dimensional photonic crystals patterned in high refractive index thin silicon slabs. These slabs are known to limit the opening of photonic band gaps for both polarizations. The proposed designs exhibit large complete photonic band gaps: the first photonic crystal structure is based on the honey-comb lattice with two different hole radii and the second structure is based on a "tri-ellipse" pattern in a triangular lattice. Photonic band gap calculations show that these structures offer large complete photonic band gaps deltaomega/omega larger than 10% between first and second photonic bands. This figure of merit is obtained with single-mode slab waveguides and is not restricted to modes below light cone.

Ultraweak-absorption microscopy of a single semiconductor quantum dot in the midinfrared range.

We show that we can measure the room temperature ultraweak absorption of a single buried semiconductor quantum dot. This is achieved by monitoring the deformation field induced by the absorption of midinfrared laser pulses and locally detected with an atomic force microscope tip. The absorption is spectrally and spatially resolved around lambda approximately 10 microm wavelength with 60 nm lateral resolution (lambda/150). The electronic S-D intersublevel absorption of a single quantum dot is identified around 120 meV and exhibits a homogeneous linewidth of approximately 10 meV at room temperature.