Group III-nitride semiconductor materials especially AlGaN are key-emerging candidates for the advancement of ultraviolet (UV) photonic devices. Numerous nanophotonics approaches using nanostructures (e.g., nanowires, nanorods, and quantum dots/disks) and nanofabrication (e.g., substrate patterning, photonic crystals, nanogratings, and surface-plasmons) have been demonstrated to address the material growth challenges and to enhance the device efficiencies of photonic devices operating at UV wavelengths. Here, we review the progress of nanophotonics implementations using nanostructured interfaces and nanofabrication approaches for the group III-nitride semiconductors to realize efficient UV-based photonic devices. The existing challenges of nanophotonics applications are presented. This review aims to provide analysis of state-of-the-art nanophotonic approaches in advancing the UV-photonic devices based on group III-nitride semiconductors.
Lasing was observed from ZnO nanorods prepared by a simple method of chemical bath deposition (CBD) on ITOcoated glass substrates. The X-ray diffraction pattern showed a dominant peak for (002) plane typical for good crystalline quality of ZnO grown in the z-direction with a wurtzite structure. Continuous-wave photoluminescence (PL) spectra revealed a peak centered at 380 nm corresponding to the band gap of ZnO. Under pulsed optical pumping, lasing was observed above the nominal PL peak, initially for one mode at 384 nm. Two additional modes at 386 nm and 390 nm was observed when the pumping power is further increased. Threshold was achieved at 0.7 μJ which was 10 times smaller than that reported for powder-based random lasers. In addition, gain pinning was also observed for the dominant mode and the additional two modes appeared upon onset of this gain pining behavior.
Vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs) have proved to be versatile lasers which allow for various emission schemes which on the one hand include remarkably high-power multi-mode or single-frequency continuouswave operation, and on the other hand two-color as well as mode-locked emission. Particularly, the combination of semiconductor gain medium and external cavity provides a unique access to high-brightness output, a high beam quality and wavelength flexibility. Moreover, the exploitation of intra-cavity frequency conversion further extends the achievable radiation wavelength, spanning a spectral range from the UV to the THz. In this work, recent advances in the field of VECSELs are summarized and the demonstration of self-mode-locking (SML) VECSELs with sub-ps pulses is highlighted. Thereby, we present studies which were not only performed for a quantum-well-based VECSEL, but also for a quantum-dot VECSEL.
We systematically study the single- and multi-mode emission of vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs) using streak camera measurements and interferometric measurement techniques. In all experiments, the VECSEL chip is based on (GaIn)As multi-quantum wells as active medium designed for laser emission around 1010 nm. The emission is analyzed in dependence of the pump power, employing two resonator designs as well as different output couplers. We monitor the evolution of emission bandwidth and show that in our setups a stable two-color lasing –with both lasing intensities sharing the same gain region on the chip– is related to a sufficiently high number of longitudinal modes participating in the laser emission.
The microscopic theory for the nonequilibrium optical properties of VECSELs is summarized. Detailed experiments
of VECSELs under two-color operation conditons are performed utilizing streak camera measurements
of the laser output. A statistical analysis reveals the stability range of two-color emission and shows that this
operation mode is possible even in the presence of relatively large losses.
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