Building blocks are provided for on-chip chemical sensors and other highly-compact photonic integrated circuits combining interband or quantum cascade lasers and detectors with passive waveguides and other components integrated on a III-V or silicon. A MWIR or LWIR laser source is evanescently coupled into a passive extended or resonant-cavity waveguide that provides evanescent coupling to a sample gas (or liquid) for spectroscopic chemical sensing. In the case of an ICL, the uppermost layer of this passive waveguide has a relatively high index of refraction that enables it to form the core of the waveguide, while the ambient air, consisting of the sample gas, functions as the top cladding layer. A fraction of the propagating light beam is absorbed by the sample gas if it contains a chemical species having a fingerprint absorption feature within the spectral linewidth of the laser emission.

A laser chip for flip-chip bonding on a silicon photonics chip with passive alignment features. The laser chip includes a chip body made of a p-region and a n-region in vertical direction and extended from a front facet to a rear facet in longitudinal direction, a pair of first vertical stoppers formed respectively beyond two sides of the chip body based on a wider width of the n-region, an active region buried in the chip body between the p-region and the n-region in the vertical direction and extended from the front facet to the rear facet in the longitudinal direction, an alignment mark formed on a top surface of the p-region near the front facet with a lateral distance defined in sub-micron precision relative to the active region; and a thin metal film on the surface of the p-region having a cleaved edge shared with the front facet.

Building blocks are provided for on-chip chemical sensors and other highly-compact photonic integrated circuits combining interband or quantum cascade lasers and detectors with passive waveguides and other components integrated on a III-V or silicon. A MWIR or LWIR laser source is evanescently coupled into a passive extended or resonant-cavity waveguide that provides evanescent coupling to a sample gas (or liquid) for spectroscopic chemical sensing. In the case of an ICL, the uppermost layer of this passive waveguide has a relatively high index of refraction that enables it to form the core of the waveguide, while the ambient air, consisting of the sample gas, functions as the top cladding layer. A fraction of the propagating light beam is absorbed by the sample gas if it contains a chemical species having a fingerprint absorption feature within the spectral linewidth of the laser emission.

A semiconductor substrate is provided in the present disclosure. The semiconductor substrate includes a first semiconductor layer and a second semiconductor layer on the first semiconductor layer. The first semiconductor layer has a first lattice constant (L1) and the second semiconductor layer has a second lattice constant (L2). A ratio of a difference (L2-L1) between the second lattice constant (L2) and the first lattice constant (L1) to the first lattice constant (L1) is greater than 0.036.

A single-mode micro-laser based on a single whispering gallery mode optical microcavity and a preparation method thereof described includes: preparing a desired single whispering gallery mode optical microcavity doped with rare earth ions or containing a gain material such as quantum dots, wherein an optical microcavity configuration include a micro-disk cavity, a ring-shaped microcavity, and a racetrack-shaped microcavity; a material type include lithium niobate, silicon dioxide, silicon nitride, etc.; preparing an optical fiber cone or an optical waveguide of a required size which can excite high-order modes of the optical microcavity, such as a ridge waveguide and a circular waveguides; and coupling, integrating, and packaging the optical fiber cone or the optical waveguide with the microcavity. A pump light is coupled to the optical fiber cone or the optical waveguide to excite a compound mode with a polygonal configuration.

A method of manufacturing a III-V based optoelectronic device on a silicon-on-insulator wafer. The silicon-on-insulator wafer comprises a silicon device layer, a substrate, and an insulator layer between the substrate and silicon device layer. The method includes the steps of: providing a device coupon, the device coupon being formed of a plurality of III-V based layers; providing the silicon-on-insulator wafer, the wafer including a cavity with a bonding region; transfer printing the device coupon into the cavity, and bonding a layer of the device coupon to the bonding region, such that a channel is left around one or more lateral sides of the device coupon; filling the channel with a bridge-waveguide material; and performing one or more etching steps on the device coupon, silicon-on-insulator wafer, and/or channel.

The structures and methods described include an inverted slab-coupled optical waveguide (SCOW) structure, which inverts the polarity of a typical SCOW diode and includes an active region located at an inverted side of the slab section of the inverted SCOW. The inverted SCOWs provide for easily adjustable optical mode confinement or overlap in an active region/gain medium without the risks of generating multiple spatial modes or high electrical resistance associated with traditional non-inverted SCOWs.

The present invention relates to a diode laser with a current block and, in particular, to a diode laser with a modified “p-n-p” or “n-p-n” structure as a current block for reducing the tunneling probability. A diode laser according to the invention comprises an active layer and a layered current block formed outside the active layer, wherein the current block is made of a material doped in opposition to its surroundings for a spatially selective current injection of the active layer between an n-substrate and a p-contact; wherein the current block is separated from adjacent layers via an intrinsic outer layer.

Building blocks are provided for on-chip chemical sensors and other highly-compact photonic integrated circuits combining interband or quantum cascade lasers and detectors with passive waveguides and other components integrated on a III-V or silicon. A MWIR or LWIR laser source is evanescently coupled into a passive extended or resonant-cavity waveguide that provides evanescent coupling to a sample gas (or liquid) for spectroscopic chemical sensing. In the case of an ICL, the uppermost layer of this passive waveguide has a relatively high index of refraction that enables it to form the core of the waveguide, while the ambient air, consisting of the sample gas, functions as the top cladding layer. A fraction of the propagating light beam is absorbed by the sample gas if it contains a chemical species having a fingerprint absorption feature within the spectral linewidth of the laser emission.

Building blocks are provided for on-chip chemical sensors and other highly-compact photonic integrated circuits combining interband or quantum cascade lasers and detectors with passive waveguides and other components integrated on a III-V or silicon. A MWIR or LWIR laser source is evanescently coupled into a passive extended or resonant-cavity waveguide that provides evanescent coupling to a sample gas (or liquid) for spectroscopic chemical sensing. In the case of an ICL, the uppermost layer of this passive waveguide has a relatively high index of refraction that enables it to form the core of the waveguide, while the ambient air, consisting of the sample gas, functions as the top cladding layer. A fraction of the propagating light beam is absorbed by the sample gas if it contains a chemical species having a fingerprint absorption feature within the spectral linewidth of the laser emission.