Si is one of the most important semiconductor materials. Although it has been the mainstays for modern electronics, it is not widely used for light emitting sources because bulk Si is an inefficient emitter. Direct epitaxial growth of III-V compound nanostructures on Si substrates is one of the most promising candidates for realizing photonic devices on a silicon platform. The major issue of monolithic integration of III-V on group IV platform is the formation of high-density threading dislocations (TDs). The propagation of TDs will cause high ratio of non-radiative recombination centre in III-V epitaxial active region. To stop the TD propagation, different epitaxial strategies, such as InGa(Al)As strain layer and Ge buffer layers have been applied and compared in this presentation. 

 

As a zero-dimensional material, quantum dots (QDs) have three-dimensional quantum confinements, which create delta-function like density of states. Therefore, III-V QD lasers have low threshold currents, temperature insensitive operation, and less sensitivity to threading dislocations, which are the ideal candidate to form active region in III-V lasers grown on group IV substrates. High performance QD lasers grown on Si and Ge substrates have been developed since 2011. High-performance InAs/GaAs QD lasers with different doping modulations were also developed [1-5]. In this presentation, the development milestones of InAs/GaAs QD lasers monolithically grown on a Si platform will be also summarised, and the potential trend in next few years will also be predicted.

 

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2.      H Liu, T Wang, Q Jiang, R Hogg, F Tutu, F Pozzi, A Seeds, Nature Photonics, 2011, 5, 416

3.      Yi Wang, Siming Chen, Ying Yu, Lidan Zhou, Lin Liu, Chunchuan Yang, Mengya Liao, Mingchu Tang, Zizhuo Liu, Jiang Wu, Wei Li, Ian Ross, Alwyn J Seeds, Huiyun Liu, Siyuan Yu, Optica, 2018, 5, 528

4.      Taojie Zhou, Mingchu Tang, Guohong Xiang, Boyuan Xiang, Suikong Hark, Mickael Martin, Thierry Baron, Shujie Pan, Jae-Seong Park, Zizhuo Liu, Siming Chen, Zhaoyu Zhang, Huiyun Liu, Nature Communications, 2020, 11, 977

5.      Jingwen Ma, Taojie Zhou, Mingchu Tang, Haochuan Li, Zhan Zhang, Xiang Xi, Mickael Martin, Thierry Baron, Huiyun Liu, Zhaoyu Zhang, Siming Chen, Xiankai Sun, Light: Science & Applications, 2023, 12, 255