Semiconductor laser apparatus and manufacturing method thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9484711-B2
Application number	US-201514600443-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 20, 2015
Priority date	Jan 20, 2015
Publication date	Nov 1, 2016
Grant date	Nov 1, 2016

Abstract

A semiconductor laser apparatus includes a silicon-on-insulator assembly and an edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly integrated on the silicon-on-insulator assembly. The silicon-on-insulator assembly includes an optical waveguide at the top which is bonded to the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly and configured to couple a laser light emitted from the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly, and the optical waveguide includes a core portion located in the middle of the optical waveguide; and at least one vertical rib configured on two sides of the core portion respectively, with a width narrower than that of the core portion. The apparatus obtains a single mode laser operation and has low propagation loss and high mechanical bond strength.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A semiconductor laser apparatus, comprising:
a silicon-on-insulator assembly; and
an edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly integrated on the silicon-on-insulator assembly;
the silicon-on-insulator assembly comprising an optical waveguide at the top which is bonded to the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly and configured to couple a laser light emitted from the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly, wherein the optical waveguide comprises:
a core portion located in the middle of the optical waveguide; and
at least one vertical rib configured on two sides of the core portion respectively, with a width narrower than that of the core portion,
wherein the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly comprises a simple Fabry-Perot (FP) Broad Area (BA) laser, a Distributed Bragg Reflector (DBR) laser, a Distributed Feedback (DFB) laser, or a Quantum cascade laser (QCL), and the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly comprises the DFB laser which comprises at least one row of DFB gratings disposed on a top surface of the core portion along the length direction thereof.

2. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the silicon-on-insulator assembly comprises a substrate, a buried oxide layer stacked on the substrate, and the optical waveguide stacked on the buried oxide layer.

3. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the optical waveguide is made of silicon.

4. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the vertical rib is formed by etching the portions at two sides of the core portion.

5. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein said etching has a depth that reaches to a bottom of the optical waveguide to expose a top surface of a buried oxide layer of the silicon-on-insulator assembly.

6. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein said etching has a depth that reaches into a buried oxide layer of the silicon-on-insulator assembly.

7. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly has an injected carrier channeling window made of proton implantation or tunnel junction.

8. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the DFB gratings are made on a bottom clad semiconductor layer or a top clad semiconductor layer.

9. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the DFB gratings comprise a phase shifted DFB grating in the middle of the gratings.

10. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 9 , wherein the DFB gratings comprise a phase shifted DFB grating made on a bottom clad semiconductor layer or a top clad semiconductor layer.

11. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 9 , wherein the DFB gratings comprise phase shifted DFB gratings which are formed on the core portion and a bottom clad semiconductor layer.

12. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly comprises an active region which comprises single or multiple quantum wells or quantum dots emitting at 1.31 μm and 1.55 μm wavelengths, and is made of chemical elements selected from III-V, II-VI and IV groups of periodic table.

13. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein multiple photonic crystal cavities are formed on the vertical ribs to adjust the effective index of the optical waveguide.

14. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the width of the core portion is in the range of 600-3000nm, a height of the core portion is in the range of 200-800 nm.

15. The semiconductor laser apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the width of the vertical ribs (Wr) and a pitch between the vertical ribs (Λ) related by duty cycle (DC) as DC=Wr/Λ, and the DC is in the range of 5-90%, and a height of the vertical ribs is in the range of 200-800nm same as a height of the core portion.

16. A method of manufacturing a semiconductor laser apparatus, comprising steps of:
providing an edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly;
providing a silicon-on-insulator assembly having an optical waveguide at the top;
patterning a top surface of optical waveguide to form a core portion located in the middle, and at least one vertical rib configured on two sides of the core portion respectively, with a width narrower than that of the core portion;
forming multiple photonic crystal cavities on the vertical ribs to adjust the effective index of the optical waveguide; and
bonding the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly to a top of the optical waveguide of the silicon-on-insulator assembly.

17. The method according to claim 16 , wherein said patterning the top surface of the optical waveguide comprises etching the top surface of the optical waveguide to form the core portion and the vertical ribs in the predetermined size.

18. The method according to claim 16 , wherein the width of the core portion is in the range of 600-3000nm, a height of the core portion is in the range of 200-800 nm.

19. The method according to claim 16 , wherein the width of the vertical ribs (Wr) and a pitch between the vertical ribs (Λ) related by duty cycle (DC) as DC=Wr/Λ, and the DC is kept in the range of 5-90%, and a height of the vertical ribs is in the range of 200-800nm same as a height of the core portion.

20. The method according to claim 16 , wherein the optical waveguide is made of silicon.

21. A semiconductor laser apparatus, comprising:
a silicon-on-insulator assembly; and
an edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly integrated on the silicon-on-insulator assembly,
the silicon-on-insulator assembly comprising an optical waveguide at the top which is bonded to the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly and configured to couple a laser light emitted from the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly, wherein the optical waveguide comprises:
a core portion located in the middle of the optical waveguide; and
at least one vertical rib configured on two sides of the core portion respectively, with a width narrower than that of the core portion,
wherein the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly comprises an active region which comprises single or multiple quantum wells or quantum dots emitting at 1.31 μm and 1.55 μm wavelengths, and is made of chemical elements selected from III-V, II-VI and IV groups of periodic table.

22. A semiconductor laser apparatus, comprising:
a silicon-on-insulator assembly; and
an edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly integrated on the silicon-on-insulator assembly,
the silicon-on-insulator assembly comprising an optical waveguide at the top which is bonded to the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly and configured to couple a laser light emitted from the edge-emitting semiconductor laser assembly, wherein the optical waveguide comprises:
a core portion located in the middle of the optical waveguide; and
at least one vertical rib configured on two sides of the core portion respectively, with a width narrower than that of the core portion,
wherein multiple photonic crystal cavities are formed on the vertical ribs to adjust the effective index of the optical waveguide.

Assignees

• Sae Magnetics Hk Ltd

Inventors

• Padullaparthi Babu Dayal

Classifications

• H01S5/02256

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01S5/02284

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01S5/1228 Primary

  DFB lasers with a complex coupled grating, e.g. gain or loss coupling · CPC title

• G02B6/4206

  Optical features (G02B6/4207, G02B6/421 take precedence) · CPC title

• H01S5/125

  Distributed Bragg reflector [DBR] lasers · CPC title