Disclosure of Invention
The present application is directed to a waveguide structure of a semiconductor laser, which can realize coupling of a high-order mode, and increase loss of the high-order mode, thereby suppressing lasing thereof and ensuring stability of fundamental mode lasing.
The embodiment of the application is realized as follows:
a waveguide structure of a semiconductor laser comprises a substrate, a lower limiting layer, a quantum well, an upper limiting layer and a ridge forming layer, wherein the lower limiting layer is arranged on the substrate; the quantum well is arranged on the lower limiting layer; the upper confinement layer is disposed on the quantum well; the ridge formation is disposed on the upper confinement layer, the ridge formation including a layer body, an etched trench, and a ridge waveguide.
In one embodiment, the width of the bottom of the etched trench is 0.5-5 μm.
In one embodiment, the width of the top of the etched trench is greater than the width of the bottom of the etched trench, and the width of the top of the etched trench is 0.5-8 μm.
In one embodiment, the substrate is made of heavily doped N-type material and the ridge is formed of P-type material.
In one embodiment, the lower confinement layer includes a first lower confinement layer and a second lower confinement layer, the first lower confinement layer being disposed on the substrate; the second lower confinement layer is sandwiched between the first lower confinement layer and the quantum well. The first lower limiting layer is made of a medium doped N-type material, and the second lower limiting layer is made of an undoped semiconductor material.
In one embodiment, the upper confinement layer includes a first upper confinement layer and a second upper confinement layer, the first upper confinement layer disposed on the quantum well; the second upper limiting layer is interposed between the first upper limiting layer and the ridge forming layer; the first upper limiting layer is made of undoped semiconductor materials, and the second upper limiting layer is made of medium-doped P-type materials.
In one embodiment, a plurality of etching grooves are arranged, and the etching grooves are rectangular grooves; the ridge waveguide is clamped between two adjacent etching grooves, and the cross section of the ridge waveguide along the thickness direction is rectangular.
In an embodiment, a light absorption member is disposed on an inner bottom surface of the etching trench.
In one embodiment, the light absorber is spaced apart from the ridge waveguide.
In one embodiment, the size of the gap is 0.5-5 μm.
In an embodiment, the width of the light absorption member is smaller than or equal to the width of the inner bottom surface of the etched trench.
In an embodiment, the thickness of the light absorption member is less than or equal to the groove depth of the etched groove.
In one embodiment, the trench depth of the etched trench is 0.5-2 μm, and the thickness of the light absorption member is 0.05-1 μm.
In one embodiment, the trench depth of the etched trench is 0.5-1 μm, and the thickness of the light absorption member is 0.05-0.5 μm.
Compared with the prior art, the beneficial effect of this application is:
according to the method, the coupling of the high-order mode is realized by reducing the width of the etched groove, and the loss of the high-order mode is increased, so that the lasing of the high-order mode is inhibited, and the stability of the lasing of the fundamental mode is ensured.
According to the high-order mode laser device, the light absorption piece is arranged on the inner bottom surface of the etching groove, the light absorption piece can be used as a loss layer for absorbing light, loss of the high-order mode is increased, and therefore lasing of the high-order mode can be restrained.
Detailed Description
The terms "first," "second," "third," and the like are used for descriptive purposes only and not for purposes of indicating or implying relative importance, and do not denote any order or order.
Furthermore, the terms "horizontal", "vertical", "overhang" and the like do not imply that the components are required to be absolutely horizontal or overhang, but may be slightly inclined. For example, "horizontal" merely means that the direction is more horizontal than "vertical" and does not mean that the structure must be perfectly horizontal, but may be slightly inclined.
In the description of the present application, it should be noted that the terms "inside", "outside", "left", "right", "upper", "lower", and the like indicate orientations or positional relationships based on orientations or positional relationships shown in the drawings or orientations or positional relationships that are conventionally arranged when products of the application are used, and are used only for convenience in describing the application and simplifying the description, but do not indicate or imply that the referred device or element must have a specific orientation, be constructed in a specific orientation, and be operated, and thus, should not be construed as limiting the application.
In the description of the present application, unless expressly stated or limited otherwise, the terms "disposed," "mounted," "connected," and "connected" are to be construed broadly, e.g., as meaning either a fixed connection, a removable connection, or an integral connection; can be mechanically or electrically connected; they may be connected directly or indirectly through intervening media, or they may be interconnected between two elements.
The technical solution of the present application will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a waveguide structure 100 of a semiconductor laser according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. A waveguide structure 100 of a semiconductor laser includes a substrate 110 epitaxially grown from bottom to top, a lower confinement layer 120, a quantum well 130, an upper confinement layer 140, and a ridge-forming layer 150. The lower confinement layer 120 is disposed on the substrate 110; quantum well 130 is disposed on lower confinement layer 120; an upper confinement layer 140 is disposed on the quantum well 130; the ridge formation layer 150 is provided on the upper confinement layer 140. Wherein substrate 110 is made of a heavily doped N-type material and ridge layer 150 is made of a heavily doped P-type material. The quantum well 130 is used to confine electrons, and the upper confinement layer 140 and the lower confinement layer 120 are used to confine the optical field.
Fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a waveguide structure 100 of a semiconductor laser according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The waveguide structure 100 of the semiconductor laser has the following dimensions: w1 — represents the width of the top of the etched trench 151; w2 — represents the width of the bottom of the etched trench 151, i.e., the width of the inner bottom surface of the etched trench 151; d1 — indicating the trench depth of the etched trench 151; t1 — represents the thickness of the layer body 153; w3 — represents the width of ridge waveguide 152. The trench width of the etched trench 151 includes a trench top width W1 and a trench bottom width W2 of the etched trench 151.
The ridge formation layer 150 includes a layer body 153, an etched trench 151, and a ridge waveguide 152; a plurality of etching grooves 151 are arranged, and the etching grooves 151 are rectangular grooves; the ridge waveguide 152 is sandwiched between two adjacent etched trenches 151, and the cross section of the ridge waveguide 152 in the thickness direction is rectangular. In other embodiments, the etched trench 151 may have other shapes such as a trapezoidal groove, and accordingly, the cross section of the ridge waveguide 152 in the thickness direction is trapezoidal.
In this embodiment, two etched trenches 151 are etched in the layer body 153, and a ridge waveguide 152 is formed between the two etched trenches 151. Thus, the ridge-formed layer 150 structure is, from left to right, a layer body 153, an etched trench 151, a ridge waveguide 152, an etched trench 151, and a layer body 153 in this order.
In the present embodiment, the groove depth D1 of the etched groove 151 is equal to the thickness T1 of the layer body 153 and also equal to the thickness of the ridge waveguide 152, and the groove top width W1 of the etched groove 151 is equal to the groove bottom width W2 of the etched groove 151. The top width W1 and the bottom width W2 of the etched trench 151 are each 0.5 to 5 μm. If the width W2 of the bottom of the etched trench 151 is less than 0.5 μm, the processing difficulty is high, and the optical field mode cannot be limited by the excessively narrow etched trench 151 due to the leakage of optical wavelengths; if the groove bottom width W2 of the etched groove 151 is greater than 5 μm, the high-order mode cannot be coupled into the upper confinement layer 140, mainly the layer body 153, due to the mode field distribution size limitation, and thus cannot be suppressed; therefore, according to the optical mode calculation simulation, it is preferable that the groove bottom width W2 of the etching groove 151 is 0.5 to 5 μm.
In one embodiment, the top width W1 of the etching trench 151 is greater than the bottom width W2 of the etching trench 151, the top width W1 of the etching trench 151 is 0.5-8 μm, and the top width W1 of the etching trench 151 is 0.5-5 μm.
In one embodiment, the width of the ridge waveguide 152 may be designed according to the desired optical output power, for example, the width W3 of the ridge waveguide 152 may be 3-10 μm.
The coupling of the high-order mode into the upper confinement layer 140 or the ridge formation layer 150 occurs only when the groove width of the etched trench 151 is sufficiently small. Therefore, the present embodiment indirectly increases the stability of fundamental mode lasing by increasing the loss of the high-order mode by coupling the high-order mode into the heavily doped P-type material of the ridge formation 150 by reducing the width of the etched trench 151, thereby suppressing the lasing of the high-order mode, increasing the lasing threshold thereof. That is, the present embodiment realizes stable operation of the fundamental transverse mode at high power by adopting a mode of horizontal mode coupling to introduce a larger loss to the high-order mode, so that the kink-free power of the output optical power of the semiconductor laser can be increased.
In one embodiment, the semiconductor laser with the top width of the etched trench 151 of 0.5-5 μm has higher loss in the higher-order mode than the semiconductor laser with the top width of the etched trench 151 greater than 8 μm or 20 μm.
Fig. 3 is a schematic structural diagram of a waveguide structure 100 of a semiconductor laser according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The lower confinement layer 120 includes a first lower confinement layer 121 and a second lower confinement layer 122, the first lower confinement layer 121 being disposed on the substrate 110; the second lower confinement layer 122 is sandwiched between the first lower confinement layer 121 and the quantum well 130. The first lower confinement layer 121 is made of a moderately doped N-type material, and the second lower confinement layer 122 is made of an undoped semiconductor material, so that the refractive index of the lower confinement layer 120 can be gradually changed.
The upper confinement layer 140 includes a first upper confinement layer 141 and a second upper confinement layer 142, the first upper confinement layer 141 being disposed on the quantum well 130; the second upper confinement layer 142 is interposed between the first upper confinement layer 141 and the ridge formation layer 150. Wherein the first upper confinement layer 141 is made of an undoped semiconductor material, and the second upper confinement layer 142 is made of a moderately doped P-type material, so that the refractive index of the upper confinement layer 140 can be gradually changed.
Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating an optical field distribution of a fundamental mode of a waveguide structure 100 of a semiconductor laser according to an embodiment of the present application. The waveguide structure 100 of the semiconductor laser forms an optical field mode due to the refractive index contrast of the etched trench 151 and the ridge waveguide 152. The waveguide structure 100 of the semiconductor laser of the present embodiment has an etched trench 151 with an arbitrary trench width, and the present embodiment calculates and simulates an optical field distribution of a fundamental mode according to an optical mode, and is shown by a fundamental mode optical field contour line 200. The fundamental mode optical field contour 200 is confined in the ridge waveguide 152 and is not coupled to the layer body 153. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the optical field distribution of the fundamental mode outside the ridge waveguide 152 is all below the upper confinement layer 140.
Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of an optical field distribution of a first-order mode of a waveguide structure 100 of a semiconductor laser according to an embodiment of the present application. In this embodiment, the width W1 of the top and the width W2 of the bottom of the etching trench 151 are both 2 μm, the width W3 of the ridge waveguide 152 is 4 μm, and the thickness of the ridge waveguide 152 is 1 μm. And the light field distribution of the first-order mode is obtained by the calculation simulation according to the optical mode in the embodiment and is shown by the first-order mode light field contour line 300. The first-order mode optical field contour 300 is partially confined in the ridge waveguide 152 and is coupled to the left and right end layer bodies 153. Therefore, in this embodiment, since the optical field of the first-order mode leaks into the heavily doped P-type material of the layer body 153, the heavily doped P-type material of the layer body 153 has a strong absorption effect on light, which results in an increase in the loss of the first-order mode and an increase in the lasing threshold. While higher order modes will couple more easily into the layer body 153 than first order modes and losses will be greater.
When the "narrow enough coupling condition to etch trenches 151" is reached, and because the mode field distribution of the first-order mode is wider than the fundamental mode, the first-order mode optical field contours 300 will couple into layer body 153. If the etched trench 151 is too wide, beyond the mode field size of the first-order mode, it cannot be coupled to the layer body 153, and if the etched trench 151 is too narrow, not only is the processing difficulty high, but also the optical field mode cannot be limited by the too narrow etched trench 151 because the optical wavelength leaks. Therefore, in the embodiment, the extremely narrow 2 μm etched trench 151 is adopted, the loss of the high-order mode is increased, the fundamental mode has no influence, the threshold of the high-order mode is increased, the lasing is not easy, the lasing of the fundamental mode is more stable, and the kink-free power of the output optical power is improved.
Fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a waveguide structure 100 of a semiconductor laser according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. A light absorbing member 160 is provided on an inner bottom surface of the etched groove 151. The light absorbing member 160 may serve as a loss layer for absorbing light.
Since the high-order mode is expanded to the light absorbing member 160, the absorption loss of the high-order mode is increased, and the lasing threshold is increased, thereby indirectly causing the fundamental mode to be stably lased. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the light absorbing member 160 is disposed on the inner bottom surface of the etched trench 151, so that loss of the high-order mode is increased, and lasing of the high-order mode can be suppressed.
The waveguide structure 100 of the semiconductor laser also has the following dimensions: w4-represents the width of the light absorbing member 160; t2-represents the thickness of the light absorbing member 160; HD 1-represents the size of interval 161.
In order to avoid the loss of the fundamental mode, a space 161 is left between the light absorbing member 160 and the ridge waveguide 152, the size HD1 of the space 161 is the horizontal distance from the light absorbing member 160 to the ridge waveguide 152, and the size HD1 of the space 161 is 0.5-5 μm.
In the case where the light absorbing member 160 is provided, the coupling condition in which the high-order mode is coupled to the upper restriction layer 140 or the ridge formation layer 150 is shifted to "the size HD1 of the space 161 reaches the preset value", regardless of "the groove width of the etched groove 151" and "the width W4" of the light absorbing member 160 ". Therefore, the width W2 of the bottom of the etched trench 151 and the width W1 of the top of the etched trench may be any value (i.e., may be in the range of 0.5-5 μm, or may be out of the range of 0.5-5 μm, for example, greater than 5 μm), the width W4 of the light absorbing member 160 may be any value (i.e., may be in the range of 0.5-5 μm, or may be out of the range of 0.5-5 μm), and it is only necessary to ensure that the size HD1 of the space 161 is within a preset value.
Wherein, according to the same principle, the preset value of the size HD1 of the space 161 ranges from 0.5 to 5 μm. If the size HD1 of the space 161 is 0, i.e., there is no space 161, then there will be a loss in the fundamental mode; if the size HD1 of the space 161 is smaller than 0.5 μm, the processing difficulty is high, and the optical field mode cannot be limited because the optical wavelength leaks; if the size HD1 of the space 161 is larger than 5 μm, the high-order mode cannot be coupled into the light absorption member 160, and the high-order mode cannot be suppressed; therefore, according to the optical mode calculation simulation, the size HD1 of the space 161 is preferably 0.5-5 μm.
The thickness T2 of the light absorbing member 160 is less than or equal to the groove depth D1 of the etched groove 151. To facilitate processing, the thickness T2 of the light absorber 160 is greater than 0.05 μm. In one embodiment, the trench depth D1 of the etched trench 151 is 0.5-2 μm, and the thickness T2 of the light absorbing member 160 is 0.5-2 μm. In one embodiment, the etched trench 151 has a trench depth D1 of 0.5-1 μm and the light absorbing member has a thickness of 0.05-0.5 μm.
In one embodiment, the width W4 of the light absorbing member 160 can be designed as desired. Wherein, since the light absorbing member 160 is provided on the inner bottom surface of the etched groove 151, the width W4 of the light absorbing member 160 is less than or equal to the width W2 of the inner bottom surface of the etched groove 151.
The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present application and is not intended to limit the present application, and various modifications and changes may be made by those skilled in the art. Any modification, equivalent replacement, improvement and the like made within the spirit and principle of the present application shall be included in the protection scope of the present application.