III-V photonic integrated circuit with

waveguide-coupled light-emitting diodes

and WSi superconducting single-photon
detectors
Cite as: Appl. Phys. Lett. 115, 081105 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5108893
Submitted: 03 May 2019 . Accepted: 07 August 2019 . Published Online: 22 August 2019

Corey McDonald, Galan Moody, Sae Woo Nam, Richard P. Mirin, Jeffrey M. Shainline , Adam
McCaughan , Sonia Buckley, and Kevin L. Silverman

COLLECTIONS

This paper was selected as Featured

This paper was selected as Scilight

ARTICLES YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN

High power GaInNAs superluminescent diodes emitting over 400 mW in the 1.2 μm
wavelength range
Applied Physics Letters 115, 081104 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5111012

InAsSb-based heterostructures for infrared light modulation

Applied Physics Letters 115, 081102 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5111980

Hybrid silicon on silicon carbide integrated photonics platform

Applied Physics Letters 115, 141105 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5116201

Appl. Phys. Lett. 115, 081105 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5108893 115, 081105

 Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl

III-V photonic integrated circuit with waveguide-

coupled light-emitting diodes and WSi
superconducting single-photon detectors
Cite as: Appl. Phys. Lett. 115, 081105 (2019); doi: 10.1063/1.5108893
Submitted: 3 May 2019 . Accepted: 7 August 2019 .
Published Online: 22 August 2019

Corey McDonald,1,2 Galan Moody,2 Sae Woo Nam,2 Richard P. Mirin,2 Jeffrey M. Shainline,2
Adam McCaughan,2 Sonia Buckley,2,a) and Kevin L. Silverman1,2,a)

AFFILIATIONS
1
Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
2
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA

a)
Electronic addresses: [email protected] and [email protected]

ABSTRACT
We demonstrate cryogenic, all on-chip, single-photon-level photonic integrated circuits on a III-V platform with waveguide-coupled quan-
tum-well sources and tungsten silicide superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. We have measured the dark count rates below
10 3 counts/s and have reduced the cross talk to an adjacent waveguide by 30 dB.
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5108893

A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) platform that incorporates without significant loss. While W-centers can emit light at cryogenic
superconducting single-photon detectors and quantum sources in an temperatures and may have potential as single-photon emitters, they
all-electrical, all on-chip package would be of great benefit for quan- suffer from a low electrical-to-optical efficiency,15 which reduces the
tum optical research science and advanced computing. Improvements total system efficiency. To circumvent these limitations, source-
in microfabrication have allowed quantum optical experiments such detector PICs using waveguide-integrated III-V quantum dots (QDs)
as Hanbury-Brown and Twiss (HBT)1–4 and Hong-Ou-Mandel inter- as single-photon emitters have also been pursued;16–18 however, single
ferometry,5,6 as well as photonic quantum information processors to photons were generated from the QDs via external optical pumping,
be replicated in a cubic centimeter-scale package at cryogenic tempera- which leads to substantial scattered pump light on integrated detectors
tures.7 A scalable demonstration of a PIC platform for quantum opti- that has prevented fully integrated chip-scale quantum optical experi-
cal experiments and advanced computing requires electrically injected ments. Furthermore, niobium nitride single-photon detectors on III-V
single-photon emitters,8–10 single-photon detectors with low dark platforms typically lack a saturable internal quantum efficiency and
count rates and high quantum efficiency,11,12 and low-loss waveguides suffer worse dark count rates compared to tungsten silicide (WSi)
for routing. As an applied technology, fully integrated PICs would be detectors.10,19,20 Here, we demonstrate a III-V PIC platform with
useful as a modular platform for photonic quantum computing and waveguide-coupled LED light sources and high-efficiency supercon-
high-performance neuromorphic computing.13 Furthermore, optical ducting-nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) that exhibit dark
isolation between unintentionally coupled source-detector pairs is nec- count rates below 10 3 counts/s with greater than 30 dB cross talk iso-
essary to ensure reliable operation and precision measurements. While lation between adjacent channels. Our devices use an all on-chip, wave-
photonic circuits and the performance of integrated detectors have guide-integrated p-i-n LED coupled to amorphous WSi SNSPDs21–23
rapidly advanced, slow development of on-chip, electrically pumped for an electrical-optical-electrical cryogenic PIC with excellent signal-
light sources has hampered progress toward a fully integrated source- to-noise ratios from low dark counts, highly isolated waveguides, and
detector circuit. high quantum efficiency detectors.
A proof-of-principle, fully integrated, source-detector PIC has Our circuit consists of a quantum-well (QW) LED emitting into
been previously demonstrated on a silicon platform using W-center a waveguide with an SNSPD on the opposite end [see Fig. 1(a)–1(c)].
defects as emissive centers in light-emitting diode (LED) structures.14 The device wafer is grown using molecular beam epitaxy. First, a 2 lm
Silicon waveguides are weakly absorbing at the 1.2 lm emission wave- layer of highly doped n-Al0.7Ga0.3 As is grown on an n-type GaAs sub-
length of the W-centers and can route light to single-photon detectors strate, followed by 400 nm of intrinsic GaAs with an 11 nm

Appl. Phys. Lett. 115, 081105 (2019); doi: 10.1063/1.5108893 115, 081105-1
 Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl

FIG. 2. (a) Light-emitting diode current-voltage measurement at 800 mK. (b)

Electroluminescence spectrum at 5.1 K.

designed to scatter light out of the chip was collected by an objective

lens and spectrally resolved with a spectrometer and CCD [Fig. 2(b)].
The electroluminescence spectrum is centered at 895 nm with a full-
width at half-maximum of 2.1 nm and was not observed to shift spec-
trally within experimental resolution at different bias currents.
The SNSPDs in our PICs are operated in their superconducting
state by providing a constant current slightly lower than their critical
FIG. 1. (a) Microscope image of the integrated source-detector photonic circuit with
the light-emitting diode (LED) and the superconducting nanowire single photon current in parallel with a 50 X shunt resistor.24,25 The critical tempera-
detector (SNSPD). (b) and (c) Colorized SEM images of LED and SNSPD. (d) ture of WSi is 4.9 K, but the constrained dimensions of the nanowires
Illustration of the cross section of device layers. reduce this to about 3 K.20,23 Simulations of the nanowire length,
shown in Fig. 3, indicate that a length of 190 nm is sufficient to achieve
In0.16Ga0.84 As quantum well at its center. The diode is completed with >99% absorption of the first-order transverse electric (TE) waveguide
200 nm of p-Al0.7Ga0.3 As followed by 20 nm of p-GaAs to prevent oxi- mode, shown in the inset in Fig. 3. Detector performance was charac-
dation. Fabrication begins with evaporating and annealing an Ni/AuGe terized by biasing the SNSPDs at a range of currents and recording the
ohmic contact to the backside of the n-doped substrate. The layer of p- resulting count rate; a plot of these data is shown in Fig. 4. This mea-
Al0.7Ga0.3 As is patterned and etched to form the top contact mesas of surement was performed under two scenarios: first, with the LED cou-
the LEDs. A 40 nm layer of silicon nitride is deposited to electrically pled to the SNSPD unbiased to measure the dark count rates, and then
isolate each device. Holes are etched in the nitride spacer to allow cur- with the LED operating with various bias currents to measure the
rent injection into the LEDs from a Ti/Pt/Au top contact layer that is SNSPD performance. SNSPD count rates plateau across a 2 lA range
evaporated after this etch step. A 3 nm layer of WSi and a 2 nm layer of of detector bias currents, 70% of the range for which any counts are
amorphous silicon are deposited on the top contacts and etched to observed, indicating a saturated internal quantum efficiency.12,24
form nanowire detectors on top of the waveguides. The waveguide- These curves are indicative of high-quality SNSPDs and demonstrate
integrated nanowire is 240 nm wide and runs down the waveguide and our ability to overcome processing complications arising from pat-
back twice to increase absorption, as shown in Fig. 1(c). Finally, the terned and etched substrates. The lengths of the nanowires in our
intrinsic GaAs is etched to form the waveguides as well as mesas for
the SNSPD inductor meander and contact pads. All patterning was
made using i-line photolithography except for the nanowires, which
were defined using electron-beam lithography. The yield of our devices
was 91%, limited by defects in the nanowire lithography. A cross-
sectional overview of the device layers is shown in Fig. 1(d); contact
pads for the SNSPDs are omitted for clarity. LEDs were characterized
by first performing direct-current-voltage measurements at cryogenic
temperatures, shown in Fig. 2(a). The LED turn-on voltage was found
to be 2.1 6 0.2 V at 800 mK, which is slightly higher than the intrinsic
bandgap of 1.52 eV and may arise from increased series resistance at
low temperatures. LEDs demonstrated a current of less than 100 pA
below turn-on and when reverse-biased; the precision of our measure-
ment instruments prevented accurate resolution of smaller currents.
Spectral measurements of LEDs were made by cooling the devi-
FIG. 3. Simulated absorption of WSi nanowires. Absorption exceeds 99% for nano-
ces to 5.1 K (unless otherwise stated, all measurements were performed wires longer than 190 nm. Inset: simulated intensity cross section of the 1st-order
at 800 mK) in an optically accessible, closed-cycle helium cryostat and TE mode of waveguides. The white box is the GaAs waveguide, the green box is
applying a range of bias currents. Electroluminescence from devices the Si3N4 spacer, and the red boxes are the WSi nanowires.

Appl. Phys. Lett. 115, 081105 (2019); doi: 10.1063/1.5108893 115, 081105-2
 Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl

FIG. 4. Measured count rates for SNSPDs at 800 mK with and without LED illumi-
nation. The LED was biased at 300 nA, 500 nA, and 1 lA.

devices were 300 nm and longer, ensuring an absorption probability of

>99.95% (see Fig. 3). Similar WSi SNSPDs have demonstrated inter-
nal quantum efficiencies of at least 93%;21 we therefore estimate the
combined detection efficiency of our detectors to be at least 90%. The
reset time of our detectors was 40 6 5 ns; ignoring the relatively fast
dynamics of the LED, this implies a device speed of about 25 MHz.
Additionally, the wide plateau allows detectors to operate away from
their critical current of 5 6 0.8 lA, above which the SNSPDs operate
in the normal conducting state, ensuring maximization of the detec-
tion efficiency while minimizing dark count rates.21 Dark counts mea-
FIG. 5. (a) Schematic view of adjacent devices for cross talk measurement (not to
sured in the plateau region of bias currents are 7 6 6 counts/1000 s.
scale). (b) Optical cross talk count rates at 800 mK. The circles represent counts
Similar PICs using niobium nitride SNSPDs and optically pumped on SNSPD connected to the biased LED. The diamonds represent counts on the
sources exhibit dark count rates near 10 counts/s and suffer from neighboring SNSPD.
unwanted detection of scattered pump light, leading to background
count rates of 103 counts/s.17 While the light sources in our devices are (1) The coupling efficiency between the active waveguide region of the
QWs and are therefore brighter than QDs at high injection, the inte- LED and the waveguides was estimated using a three-dimensional
grated nature of the LEDs greatly reduces the scattered background finite-difference time-domain simulation. The calculated beta factor of
light. Furthermore, the WSi SNSPDs exhibit low dark count rates that the LEDs was about 9  10 5; the simulation revealed most of the lost
do not change significantly with the bias current. These features of our light is scattered downward into the substrate, some of which is likely
platform will enable higher signal-to-background ratios with individ- scattered to other SNSPDs and cause the optical cross talk seen in Fig.
ual quantum emitter sources compared to designs using off-chip exci- 5(b). The high sensitivity of the SNSPDs allowed us to sacrifice the
tation and will eliminate the need for careful shielding of the detectors coupling efficiency for ease of fabrication, but a PIC platform with
and temporal filtering of scattered light.17,18 single-photon sources necessarily requires a high coupling efficiency
Reliable operation of these circuits depends on coupling a sufficient to waveguides. Light confinement in the growth direction can be
improved by suspending the waveguide, which greatly increases the
fraction of light generated by LED sources into the waveguide while index contrast.3 Changes to the device geometry to relocate the con-
minimizing the amount of light scattered to other SNSPDs. To ensure tact pads and add an etched distributed Bragg reflector behind the
that our platform meets these requirements, the cross talk between current-injection region can more effectively guide light into the wave-
neighboring PICs was measured by driving one LED and detecting guide.14 Another distributed Bragg reflector could be added to the
counts from its waveguide-coupled SNSPD as well as counts from the waveguide to form a cavity, making use of the Purcell effect to
SNSPD on the adjacent waveguide, which is 265 lm away. A schematic enhance the emission rate into the waveguide mode.
view of this measurement is shown in Fig. 5(a). Data from the cross talk (2) Absorption loss within the waveguide is significantly higher in our
measurement is shown in Fig. 5(b), demonstrating more than 30 dB GaAs waveguides than in silicon.14 Although the 895 nm light in
suppression of count rates on adjacent channels. This ensures light is our PICs is below the bandgap energy of the GaAs waveguides, the
indeed waveguide coupled and spurious counts from scattered photons InGaAs QW causes absorption and overlaps with the centers of the
optical modes. The loss is difficult to estimate with any accuracy at
are the dominant contribution to the detector noise floor.
a low temperature because we anticipate a significant, but
The goal of this work was a proof-of-principle demonstration of a unknown, Stokes shift of the quantum well exciton emission
fully integrated, source-detector PIC on a III-V platform and system energy.25 This red-shift of the exciton energy from the peak of the
efficiency was not prioritized. The fully integrated nature of our PICs absorption will result in substantially less loss from absorption in
prevents direct measurement of the efficiencies of the individual compo- the passive regions of the waveguide. This absorption loss could be
nents, however, we estimate the primary sources of loss to be as follows: further mitigated by using intermixing,26 shifting the unpumped

Appl. Phys. Lett. 115, 081105 (2019); doi: 10.1063/1.5108893 115, 081105-3
 Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl

3
QW band edge from the generated signal photons. Using die- or G. E. Digeronimo, M. Petruzzella, S. Birindelli, R. Gaudio, S. F. Poor, F. W. M.
wafer-bonding enables heterogeneous integration of III-V materials van Otten, and A. Fiore, Photonics 3, 55 (2016).
4
for efficient light generation with silicon-based materials for low-loss M. Schwartz, E. Schmidt, U. Rengstl, F. Hornung, S. Hepp, S. L. Portalupi, K.
routing.27,28 The absence of the QW and low absorption of silicon 5
Ilin, M. Jetter, M. Siegel, and P. Michler, Nano Lett. 18, 6892 (2018).
nitride would greatly reduce absorption loss within the waveguide, D. J. P. Ellis, A. J. Bennett, C. Dangel, J. P. Lee, J. P. Griffiths, T. A. Mitchell, T.
and the higher index contrast between Si3N4 and SiO2 compared to K. Paraiso, P. Spencer, D. A. Ritchie, and A. J. Shields, Appl. Phys. Lett. 112,
GaAs/AlGaAs would improve confinement on the bottom interface 211104 (2018).
6
of the waveguides. While such hybrid platforms reduce absorption J. W. Silverstone, R. Santagati, D. Bonneau, M. J. Strain, M. Sorel, J. L. O’Brien,
and M. G. Thompson, Nat. Commun. 6, 7948 (2015).
loss, they introduce additional loss from interplanar waveguide cou- 7
X. Qiang, X. Zhou, J. Wang, C. M. Wilkes, T. Loke, S. O’Gara, L. Kling, G. D.
pling, which can be made as low as 0.05 dB per coupler.29
Marshall, R. Santagati, T. C. Ralph et al., Nat. Photonics 12, 534 (2018).
(3) The electro-optical efficiency of the LEDs was not measured in this work, 8
S. Deshpande, T. Frost, A. Hazari, and P. Bhattacharya, Appl. Phys. Lett. 105,
however the increase in the turn-on voltage at low temperatures may indi- 141109 (2014).
cate freeze out of free carriers. Improvements to the dopant density and 9
A. Schlehahn, A. Thoma, P. Munnelly, M. Kamp, S. H€ ofling, T. Heindel, C.
material quality can address this issue and would require only a change to Schneider, and S. Reitzenstein, APL Photonics 1, 011301 (2016).
the wafer growth. Optimization of the metal-semiconductor contacts 10
I. Aharonovich, D. Englund, and M. Toth, Nat. Photonics 10, 631 (2016).
would also improve this efficiency by reducing the contact resistance. 11
J. P. Sprengers, A. Gaggero, D. Sahin, S. Jahanmirinejad, G. Frucci, F. Mattioli, R.
Leoni, J. Beetz, M. Lermer, M. Kamp et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 181110 (2011).
Previous examples of III-V platforms for QPICs have used opti- 12
J. M. Shainline, S. M. Buckley, N. Nader, C. M. Gentry, K. C. Cossel, J. W.
cally pumped quantum dots (QDs) in GaAs as single-photon emit- Cleary, M. Popović, N. R. Newbury, S. W. Nam, and R. P. Mirin, Opt. Express
ters.3,27,30,31 Though our current platform uses an InGaAs QW as the 25, 10322 (2017).
13
source, changing the epitaxial layer to QDs is straightforward and will J. M. Shainline, S. M. Buckley, R. P. Mirin, and S. W. Nam, Phys. Rev. Appl. 7,
be the focus of future studies. Waveguide absorption is also improved 034013 (2017).
14
by using QDs, as the material absorption of GaAs and resonant absorp- S. M. Buckley, J. Chiles, A. N. McCaughan, G. Moody, K. L. Silverman, M. J.
Stevens, R. P. Mirin, S. W. Nam, and J. M. Shainline, Appl. Phys. Lett. 111,
tion by the active layer is less than that of the QW. By choosing the cor- 141101 (2017).
rect density and size of QDs, it may be possible to design an on-chip, 15
J. Bao, M. Tabbal, T. Kim, S. Charnvanichborikarn, J. S. Williams, M. J. Aziz,
electrically injected, waveguide-coupled ensemble of single-photon emit- and F. Capasso, Opt. Express 15, 6727 (2007).
16
ters. It should be noted that to date, the highest-purity single photon F. Flassig, M. Kaniber, G. Reithmaier, K. M€ uller, A. Andrejew, R. O. Gross, J.
emission from QDs has been achieved from resonant optical pumping. Vuçkovic, and J. J. Finley, Proc. SPIE 9373, 937305 (2015).
17
The timing jitter resulting from the carrier relaxation induced by non- G. Reithmaier, M. Kaniber, F. Flassig, S. Lichtmannecker, K. M€ uller, A.
Andrejew, J. Vučković, R. Gross, and J. J. Finley, Nano Lett. 15, 5208 (2015).
resonant pumping deteriorates the indistinguishability of single photons. 18
G. Reithmaier, S. Lichtmannecker, T. Reichert, P. Hasch, K. M€ uller, M. Bichler,
While resonant electrical pumping may be possible using tunneling,32 R. Gross, and J. J. Finley, Sci. Rep. 3, 1901 (2013).
jitter is still present in the form of the tunneling rate, and further work is 19
D. Sahin, A. Gaggero, Z. Zhou, S. Jahanmirinejad, F. Mattioli, R. Leoni, J. Beetz,
necessary before QDs can be used as fully integrated, electrically driven, M. Lermer, M. Kamp, S. H€ ofling et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 103, 111116 (2013).
single-photon emitters. HBT circuits2–4 and Mach–Zehnder interferom- 20
C. M. Natarajan, M. G. Tanner, and R. H. Hadfield, Supercond. Sci. Technol.
eters with phase-modulators33 could be fabricated on such a platform 21
25, 063001 (2012).
F. Marsili, V. B. Verma, J. A. Stern, S. Harrington, A. E. Lita, T. Gerrits, I.
to measure the single-photon purity and indistinguishability of QD
Vayshenker, B. Baek, M. D. Shaw, R. P. Mirin et al., Nat. Photonics 7, 210 (2013).
LEDs all on-chip. Photonic crystals have been used to filter single-dot 22
A. D. Beyer, M. D. Shaw, F. Marsili, M. S. Allman, A. E. Lita, V. B. Verma, G.
emission from an ensemble on-chip,3 potentially enabling all on-chip V. Resta, J. A. Stern, R. P. Mirin, S. W. Nam et al., IEEE Trans. Appl.
measurements of single-dot emission; ring resonators of comparable Supercond. 25, 2200805 (2015).
23
Q-factor could alternatively be used as well. Photon-number resolving X. Zhang, A. Engel, Q. Wang, A. Schilling, A. Semenov, M. Sidorova, H.-W.
SNSPDs have been integrated with III-V waveguides, providing a path H€ ubers, I. Charaev, K. Ilin, and M. Siegel, Phys. Rev. B 94, 174509–174501
toward complexity scaling of detection circuits while maintaining a (2016).
24
B. Baek, A. Lita, V. Verma, and S. W. Nam, Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 251105 (2011).
small footprint.19 WSi SNSPDs are well-suited for a III-V platform, as 25
G. Bastard, C. Delalande, M. H. Meynadier, P. M. Frijlink, and M. Voos, Phys.
the amorphous material is more tolerant of surface roughness and Rev. B 29, 7042 (1984).
robust against processing than crystalline NbN. 26
E. J. Skogen, J. W. Raring, G. B. Morrison, C. S. Wang, V. Lal, M. L. Masanović,
In summary, we have developed and tested a III-V integrated and L. A. Coldren, IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 11, 343 (2005).
27
photonics platform consisting of an all on-chip, all-electrical, source- M. Davanco, J. Liu, L. Sapienza, C. Zhang, J. V. D. Cardoso, V. Verma, R.
detector PIC utilizing high-efficiency, WSi SNSPDs with dark count Mirin, S. W. Nam, L. Liu, and K. Srinivasan, Nat. Commun. 8, 889 (2017).
28
T. Komljenovic, M. Davenpot, J. Hulme, A. Y. Liu, C. T. Santis, A. Spott, S.
rates below 10 3 counts/s and greater than 30 dB optical isolation
Srinivasan, E. J. Stanton, C. Zhang, and J. E. Bowers, J. Lightwave Tech. 34, 20
between adjacent channels. These PICs are scalable and can easily be (2016).
adapted to include optical structures such as modulators, filters, and 29
J. Chiles, S. Buckley, N. Nader, S. W. Nam, R. P. Mirin, and J. M. Shainline,
beamsplitters to enable a breadth of integrated photonics experiments APL Photonics 2, 116101 (2017).
30
relevant for many applications in science and technology. I. E. Zadeh, A. W. Elshaari, K. D. J€ ons, A. Fognini, D. Dalacu, P. J. Poole, M. E.
Reimer, and V. Zwiller, Nano Lett. 16, 2289 (2016).
31
J. Kim, S. Aghaeimeibodi, C. J. K. Richardson, R. P. Leavitt, D. Englund, and E.
REFERENCES Waks, Nano Lett. 17, 7394 (2017).
1 32
N. Prtljaga, C. Bentham, J. O’Hara, B. Royall, E. Clarke, L. R. Wilson, M. S. O. Benson, C. Santori, M. Pelton, and Y. Yamamoto, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 2513
Skolnick, and A. M. Fox, Appl. Phys. Lett. 108, 251101 (2016). (2000).
2 33
S. Khasminskaya, F. Pyatkov, K. Słowik, S. Ferrari, O. Kahl, V. Kovalyuk, P. Rath, J. Wang, A. Santamato, P. Jiang, D. Monneau, E. Engin, J. W. Silverstone, M.
A. Vetter, F. Hennrich, M. M. Kappes et al., Nat. Photonics 10, 727 (2016). Lermer, J. Beetz, M. Kamp, S. H€ ofling et al., Opt. Commun. 327, 49 (2014).

Appl. Phys. Lett. 115, 081105 (2019); doi: 10.1063/1.5108893 115, 081105-4