Electrically driven photonic crystal nanocavity lasers, LEDs, and modulators

A fabrication procedure for electrically pumping photonic crystal membrane devices using a lateral p-i-n junction has been developed and is described in this work. The lateral junction is optimized to efficiently inject current into a photonic crystal nanocavity. We have demonstrated electrically pumped lasing by using the lateral junction to pump a quantum dot photonic crystal nanocavity laser. Continuous wave lasing is observed at temperatures up to 150K, and a threshold of 181nA at 50K is demonstrated - the lowest threshold ever demonstrated in an electrically pumped laser. At room temperature we find that our devices do not lase, but behave as single-mode light-emitting diodes (LEDs). When directly modulated, we find that our LEDs have an ultrafast electrical response up to 10 GHz corresponding to less than 1 fJ/bit energy operation. In addition, we have demonstrated electrical pumping of photonic crystal nanobeam LEDs, and have built fiber taper coupled electro-optic modulators in the same lateral junction platform.