Design of a Novel Micro-Laser Formed by Monolithic Integration of a III-V Pillar With a Silicon Photonic Crystal Cavity

A novel micro-laser configuration formed by integrating an InGaAs/InP pillar with a silicon photonic crystal cavity is proposed and analyzed in detail. Special attention is paid to designing the cavity such that it can accommodate large-size pillars without performance compromise. The Purcell effect is studied and predicted to be significant because of the close interaction between the cavity modes and the gain medium. An overall quality factor as high as 1×10
⁵
and a spontaneous emission factor close to unity are predicted. Possible limiting factors for laser performance, such as surface non-radiative recombination and the thermal dissipation properties are analyzed, and it is found that the proposed laser design is very robust. This comprehensive analysis suggests that the proposed micro-laser is a promising candidate for large-scale integration of micro-lasers on silicon for low power consumption applications, such as intra-chip optical communications.