Sierpinski Gasket Triangular Quantum Dot Lasers

Liming Liu, Ziyuan Li, Haroldo T. Hattori Carmem L. Barbosa

SEIT-School of Engineering and Information Technology EFO-Divisão de Fotônica
The University of New South Wales Instituto de Estudos Avançados-IEAv
Canberra, Australia São José dos Campos, Brazil
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—In this article, a triangular resonator is modified by device due to selective radiation losses introduced by the
adding air inclusions to create a Sierpinski Gasket resonator. The middle air triangle in the laser structure. The mode selection
resonant modes of this fractal structure are studied by using process is the increase of radiation losses of other modes while
Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) analysis. In the end, the the main mode remains with considerably lower losses. If the
potential of using the fractal structure as a laser resonator is fractal order of the structure is increased even further, the
analyzed, showing that a 1st order Sierpinski Gasket can operate losses increase considerably and the quality factor of the main
as a quasi single-mode laser. resonant mode drops considerably: it might become even
impossible for the device to lase if the quality factor is too low.
Keywords—integrated optics; triangular lasers; fractal;
It might be argued that single-mode operation can be
quantum dot lasers
achieved by using small area lasers – that is true but at the cost
I. INTRODUCTION of emitting considerably lower power. In addition to that,
broader area lasers have better heat dissipation and a narrower
The word fractal comes from the latin word “fractus”, beam divergence [13].
meaning broken. It is used to describe structures that present
self-similar patterns, meaning that some of the small patterns in II. DESCRIPTION OF THE DEVICE
the structure resemble the larger ones [1]. Fractals have been
used in many areas of science such as chemistry, biology, The epitaxially layered structure is shown in Fig.1. It
physics and engineering. Examples of fractal patterns applied consists of a core layer of GaAs with thickness of 168 nm
to electromagnetics include fractal antennas [2], fiber Bragg surrounded by air on top and oxidized Al0.98Ga0.02As layer
gratings [3] and plasmonic nano-particles [4]. These structures (refractive index of about 1.65) in the bottom. Inside the GaAs
have been used to create broadband devices and enhancing core layer, there are three layers of In0.5Ga0.5As quantum dots.
nonlinear effects such as Raman scattering. In particular, we The quantum dots emit light at a central wavelength of 1160
are interested in the two-dimensional Sierpinski Gasket nm with a total linewidth of 100 nm. Vertical confinement of
structure which has a Hausdorff dimension of ln(3)/ln(2) [1]. light is achieved by total internal reflection in the lower
The Sierpinski Gasket structure starts from an equilateral refractive indices layers.
triangle. Then, a smaller triangle is removed from the initial
triangle with half of the size of the original - in such a way that
3 triangles are left touching each other. The procedure can be
repeated indefinitely [1].
On the other hand, triangular resonators have been widely
used in semiconductor laser devices [5-15]. These resonators
are based on total internal reflection between the resonator and
a low refractive index embedding medium (e.g. air). Other
geometric shapes can also be used as resonators (e.g.
microdisks, squares) but triangular resonators generally have
fewer resonant modes than square and microdisk resonators
with similar areas - it is harder to confine light by total internal
reflection at sharp angles [5, 6]. The penalty for having fewer Fig. 1 Epitaxially layered structure of the triangular quantum dot laser
modes, however, is lower quality (Q) factors for the resonant A top view of the laser structures are shown in Figs. 2(a),
modes in these structures. (b) and (c). Figure 2(a) shows the original equilateral triangular
In this paper, we show that by using fractal-like structures, laser (ETL) with side of 9 µm. By removing the central part
we can convert a multimode resonator into a quasi-single mode (etching away the solid layer by using, for example, a Focused
Ion Beam Milling System [15]), we create a first order
This work was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC), Sierpinski Gasket (the side of the removed equilateral triangle
Research Publication Fellowship (UNSW), CNPq and FAPESP (INCT is 4.5 µm) (Fig. 2(b)) and further removing parts of the
Fotonicom-Brazil)
remaining triangles, a second order Sierpinski Gasket is created
(Fig. 2(c), the side of the smaller triangles is 2.25 µm).
 of the magnetic field in the y-direction (Hy). A light source is
placed at the upper part of the triangular laser to simulate
emission of light, with a spot-size diameter of 200 nm. The
grid sizes are uniform along the x and z directions (Δx=Δz=30
nm) and the time step Δt=6.7x10-18 s. The 420 nm waveguide
and the surrounding air regions are terminated by Perfectly
Matching Layers. A magnetic field monitor is placed in the
middle of the 420 nm waveguide to identify the resonant
modes of the laser cavity.
Fig. 3 shows the magnetic field spectrum (Hy) of the
triangular laser shown in Fig. 2(a). There are many resonant
modes in the structure: the main resonant mode appears at the
free-space wavelength (λ) of 1187.8 nm with quality factor (Q)
(a) of 13000, while other resonant modes appear at λ =11343 nm
(Q=5000), λ =1152.4 nm (Q= 8000), λ=1169.1 nm (Q=7000)
and 1125.5 nm (Q=10000). The structure is considerably
multimode in the gain region of the quantum dots (1130 nm to
1230 nm).

(b)

Fig. 3 Hy spectrum of the 9 µm triangular laser.

In a laser cavity, all power that is generated by the laser

must exit the cavity [17]. Thereby, if the computation area is
surrounded by power monitors, the amount of power that is
transmitted through the waveguide can be calculated. It is
estimated that about 18% is transmitted through the 420 nm
wide waveguide. The remaining emitted power is lost through
radiation. The Hy field distribution is shown in Fig. 4.

(c )
Fig. 2 Top view of the structures (a) triangular laser (b) 1st order Sierpinski
Gasket and (c) 2nd order Sierpinski Gasket.

III. ANALYSIS OF THE DEVICES

These structures are simulated by using 2D Finite-

Difference Time-Domain (FDTD method) [16]. The effective
index of the epi-layered structure is 2.82. The resonant mode is
Fig. 4 Hy field distribution of the 9 μm triangular laser at 1187.8 nm
assumed to be Transverse Electric (TE) with main component
 A very different scenario is found when a central air For the 2nd order Sierpinski Gasket as shown in Fig. 2(c),
triangular hole is removed from the main triangular laser as the radiation losses become overwhelmingly high and no clear
shown in Fig. 2(b). There are considerably less resonant peaks lasing mode is found in the gain region of the quantum dots:
in the gain region of the quantum dots as can be observed in there are only low Q resonant peaks with quality factors less
Fig. 5: the main resonant peak appears at λ=1180.5 nm with than 300 – too low to achieve lasing.
Q=5890, while other peaks appear at λ=1146.4 nm (Q=600),
λ=1112.5 nm (Q=1200) and 1219.1 nm (Q=700). Since the IV. LASER ANALYSIS
main peak has considerably higher Q factor than the other The rate equations that describe the evolution of the
peaks in the gain region of the quantum dots (1130 nm to 1230 characteristics of quantum dot lasers are described by
nm) and it is generally necessary to have Q>800 to reach equations (1)-(3) [14, 18, 19]. It is assumed that the devices
lasing, the 1st order Sierpinski Gasket is quasi single-mode. If are optically pumped in the vertical direction by a laser with a
the boundaries between the large triangle and the central air wavelength of 637 nm and spot size diameter of 6 μm.
hole (sides of the smaller triangle) are considered to be a
magnetic wall, then it could be argued that the main resonant dN w Pin λ p N w N w
=η − − (1)
peak must be restrained in the smaller triangles while other dt hcoVa τ w τc
resonant peaks have significant more radiation losses while
other resonant peaks have significant more radiation losses dN g N w N g N g
because of their symmetry. = − − − GS (2)
dt τ c τ sp τ nr
dS Ng S
= ΓGS + Γβ − (3)
dt τ sp τ p
where NW is the wetting layer carrier density, Ng is the
quantum dot ground state carrier density, and S is the photon
density. Pin is the external laser pump power and λp is the
pump wavelength. The active pump volume Va is given by
[19],
φ s2
Va = ha π (4)
4
where ha is the thickness of the active region and φs is the
spot-size diameter of the external pump laser.
The time constant τp is given by,
Qλe
τp = (5)
2πco
Fig. 5 Hy spectrum of the 9 µm triangular laser with a central air hole (1st where λe is the emitting wavelength, Q is the quality factor of
order Sierpinski Gasket)
the emitting mode and co is the speed of light in vacuum.
At the main resonant peak at λ=1180.5 nm, the The gain of the quantum dots can be approximated
transmission through the waveguide is about 25%. The field as,
distribution (Hy) is shown in Fig. 6. It shows that light is indeed
coupled into the waveguide.
(
G = Go N g − N tr ) (6)
where G0 is the linear gain coefficient with the value of
8.2x10-6 s-1 and Ntr is the transparency carrier density with a
typical value of 3.2x1023 m-3.
In the steady-state regime, all derivatives are zero. By
solving these equations as a function of Pin, we can determine
Nw, Ng and S. The output power is given by,
hc0 Vmod e
Pout = ηa S (7)
λe τ mirror
where ηa is the coupling efficiency into the waveguide,
τ mirror = τ p is the mirror lifetime and Vmode is the optical
mode volume. Other parameters are summarized in Table I.
Fig. 6 Hy field distribution of the 9 µm triangular laser with a central air Fig. 7 shows the power coupled into the waveguide (Pout)
hole (1st order Sierpinski Gasket).
as a function of the pump power (Pin). The dotted line is for
the triangular laser while the solid line is for the first order emitted by the laser, it would be necessary to increase its
Sierpinski Gasket. It is clear that both lasers have similar volume leading to multimode behavior. In this paper, we have
threshold optical powers (close to 4 mW), while the 1st order presented a large micro-laser that is quasi single-mode and is
Sierpinski triangular laser couples slightly more power into easy to fabricate (could be fabricated even with deep
the waveguide. In addition to that, the Sierpinski Gasket laser ultraviolet techniques or indentation techniques).
is considerably more single mode than the triangular laser. It is
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