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A high-performance resonant cavity enhanced photodetector (RCEPD) is developed by introducing an InGaAs/GaAs crown-shaped quantum well (CSQW) structure. In calculation, the absorption coefficient of the proposed CSQW structure is significantly enhanced by 47.8% compared with that of the conventional QW without increasing the electric field due to the large overlap of electron/hole-wave functions. To verify the feasibility of our proposed QW structure, we fabricate RCEPDs with a designed CSQW and the conventional QW structure. The fabricated CSQW-RCEPD exhibits a maximum quantum efficiency of 45.4%, an improvement of 36.2% in comparison with the conventional RCEPD. Moreover, the spectral bandwidth is 4.7 nm in the CSQW-RCEPD, which is in good agreement with the calculated result. The RCEPD with enhanced light absorption using a CSQW structure is highly promising for optical interconnect and sensing applications.

Resonant cavity optoelectronic devices, such as vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), resonant cavity enhanced photodetectors (RCEPDs), and electroabsorption modulators (EAMs), show improved performance over their predecessors by placing the active device structure inside a resonant cavity. The effect of the optical cavity, which allows wavelength selectivity and enhancement of the optical field due to resonance, allows the devices to be made thinner and therefore faster, while simultaneously increasing the quantum efficiency at the resonant wavelengths. However, the narrow spectral bandwidth significantly reduces operating tolerances, which leads to severe problems in applications such as optical communication, imaging, and biosensing. Recently, in order to overcome such drawbacks and/or to accomplish multiple functionalities, several approaches for broadening the spectral bandwidth in resonant cavity optoelectronic devices have been extensively studied. This paper reviews the recent progress in techniques for wide spectral bandwidth that include a coupled microcavity, asymmetric tandem quantum wells, and high index contrast distributed Bragg-reflectors. This review will describe design guidelines for specific devices together with experimental considerations in practical applications.

We demonstrated high-speed characteristics of an oxide-aperture vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with intracavity structures for both p- and n-contacts, based on InGaAs/GaAs multiple quantum wells operating at λ ∼ 980 nm, indicating a low thermal resistance (Rth). The asymmetric current injection scheme is employed for reducing current crowding around the rim of the oxide aperture. A high aluminium content undoped Al0.88Ga0.12As and GaAs distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) mirror is used for efficient heat dissipation. The VCSEL with a 7 μm oxide aperture exhibited an output power of 2.5 mW and a threshold current of 0.8 mA with a slope efficiency of 0.39 mW/mA at 20 °C under continuous-wave operation and it still worked with 1.3 mW at 90 °C. The temperature tuning coefficient of 0.081 nm/°C and dissipated electrical power tuning coefficient of 0.104 nm/mW were observed, leading to a low Rth of 1.28 °C/mW. A high modulation bandwidth up to 13 GHz with a modulation current efficiency factor of 6.1 GHz/mA1/2 was achieved. (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

We examined the structural and optical properties of a crown-shaped quantum well (CSQW) to suppress nonradiative recombination. To reduce carrier loss in defect traps at the well/barrier interface, the CSQW was designed to concentrate carriers in the central region by tailoring the bandgap energy. Temperature-dependent photoluminescence measurements showed that the CSQW had a high activation energy and low potential fluctuation. In addition, the long carrier lifetime of the CSQW at high temperatures can be interpreted as indicating a decrease in carrier loss at defect traps.

A time-of-flight (TOF) based three dimensional (3D) image capturing system and its enhanced optical modulating device are presented. The 3D image capturing system includes 850nm IR emitter (typically compact Laser diodes) and high speed image modulator, so called optical shutter. The optical shutter consists of multi-layered optical resonance cavity and electro-absorptive layers. The optical shutter is a solid-state controllable filter which modulates the IR image to extract the phase delay due to TOF of the emitting IR light. This presentation especially addresses robustness issues and solutions when operated under practical environments such as ambient temperature variation and existence of strong ambient light (e.g. outdoors). The wavelength of laser diode varies substantially depending on the ambient temperature, which degrades the modulation efficiency. To get a robust operation, the bandwidth of transmittance of the optical shutter is drastically improved with a novel coupled Fabry-Perot resonance cavity design to come up with the wavelength variation of the laser diode. Also, to suppress the interference of solar irradiance to IR source signal, a novel driving scheme is applied, in which IR light and optical shutter modulation duties are timely localized, i. e. ‘bursted’. Suggested novel optical shutter design and burst driving scheme enable capturing of a full HD resolution of depth image under the realistic usage environments, which so far tackle the commercialization of TOF cameras. Design, fabrication, and evaluation of the optical shutter; and, 3D capturing system prototype, image test results are presented.

We propose and demonstrate a new electro-absorption modulator (EAM) based on coupled tandem cavities (CTC) having asymmetric tandem quantum well (ATQW) structure with separated electrode configuration to achieve large transmittance change over a broad spectral range at low driving voltage for high definition (HD) 3D imaging applications. Our theoretical calculations show that CTC with ATQW structure can provide large transmittance change over a wide spectral range at low driving voltage. By introducing separated electrode configuration, the fabricated EAM having CTC with ATQW structure shows a large transmittance change over 50%, almost three times larger spectral bandwidth compared to that of EAM having single cavity with a single thickness quantum well without significantly increasing the applied voltage. In addition, the CTC with ATQW structure also shows high speed modulation up to 28 MHz for the device having a large area of 2 mm x 0.5 mm. This high transmittance change, large spectral bandwidth and low voltage operation over a large device area for the EAM having CTC with ATQW demonstrates their huge potential as an optical image modulator for HD 3D imaging applications. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America

We improved the thermal characteristics of an oxide aperture vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) having intra-cavity contacts by wrapping the top DBRs with Au metal. This wrapping process resulted is obtaining the lowest thermal resistance for a 4 um oxide aperture VCSELs ever reported. Au wrapping is thus a viable method for reducing the thermal resistance and obtaining high device performance for VCSELs.

We report the growth, fabrication and characterization of asymmetric Fabry-Perot modulators which function as optical shutter which can be used in 3-D imaging. By choosing appropriate electrode geometry, a reduction in parasitic capacitance was achieved. The results reveal that such devices are promising candidates as optical shutter for 3-D imaging applications.

We fabricated vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) and resonant-cavity-enhanced photodetectors (RCE-PDs) with GaAs/AlGaAs distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs), operating at lambda approximately 980 nm, based on an intracavity-contacted structure. The top-DBR mesa diameter of the VCSELs was optimized to 18 microm in terms of slope efficiency, differential series resistance, and 3 dB bandwidth. For VCSELs with an oxide aperture of 4.5 microm and a top-DBR mesa diameter of 18 microm, the threshold current was about 1.2 mA, exhibiting maximum output power of approximately 3.49 mW (at 20 degrees C) with good uniformity. The effect of the overetching in the outermost layer of RCE-PDs on the device performance was also investigated. For RCE-PDs based on the VCSEL structure, a peak responsivity of 0.44 A/W (at lambda approximately 979.7 nm) with a spectral width of approximately 3 nm and a dark current of 68 pA under a bias voltage of -5 V at 20 degrees C was obtained. The maximum 3 dB bandwidths of approximately 11.5 GHz with a modulation current efficiency factor of 5.6 GHz/mA(1/2) at -7 mA and 9 GHz at -7 V were achieved for VCSELs and RCE-PDs, respectively.

VCSELs and RCE-PDs based on intracavity contacted structure are demonstrated for high-speed operation. The maximum 3 dB bandwidth of VCSELs and RCE-PDs are 13.1 GHz and 9 GHz, respectively, making these devices suitable for 10 Gbps bi-directional optical interconnects.

A 20-MHz switching high-speed light-modulating device for three-dimensional (3-D) image capturing and its system prototype are presented. For 3-D image capturing, the system utilizes a time-of-flight (TOF) principle by means of a 20-MHz high-speed micromachined electro-absorptive modulator, the so-called optical shutter. The high-speed modulation is obtained by utilizing the electro-absorption mechanism of the multilayer structure, which has an optical resonance cavity and light-absorption epilayers grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition process. The optical shutter device is specially designed to have small resistor–capacitor–time constant to get the high-speed modulation. The optical shutter is positioned in front of a standard high-resolution complementary metal oxide semiconductor image sensor. The optical shutter modulates the incoming infrared image to acquire the depth image. The suggested novel optical shutter device enables capturing of a full high resolution-depth image, which has been limited to video graphics array (VGA) by previous depth-capturing technologies. The suggested 3-D image sensing device can have a crucial impact on 3-D–related business such as 3-D cameras, gesture recognition, user interfaces, and 3-D displays. This paper presents micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems-based optical shutter design, fabrication, characterization, 3-D camera system prototype, and image evaluation.

For reliable three dimensional (3D) imaging system, it is necessary for the optical shutter to have a wide spectral bandwidth operation and enhanced modulation depth. We propose an electro-absorption modulator (EAM) based on coupled Fabry-Perot cavities with micro-cavity (CCMC) which uses asymmetric tandem quantum wells (ATQWs) to obtain improved spectral bandwidth and enhanced modulation depth. Several modulator designs are investigated to obtain improved modulation performance such as wider spectral bandwidth and enhanced modulation depth. It was found that among all the studied modulator geometries, CCMC structure with ATQWs provides the widest spectral bandwidth of 9.6nm and high modulation depth in excess of 50% at -24V, which is good agreement with theoretical calculations. These results suggest that EAM has excellent potential as optical shutter for 3D imaging application. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America

Large aperture image modulators used as demodulator in receiver path are an important component for the use in three dimensional (3D) image sensing. For practical applications, low voltage operation and high modulation performance are the key requirements for modulators. Here, we propose an asymmetric Fabry-Perot modulator (AFPM) with asymmetric tandem quantum wells (ATQWs) for 3D image sensing. By using ATQWs for the AFPM design, the device operated at -4.25V, and the operating voltage was significantly lower by about 23% compared to -5.5V of a conventional AFPM with 8nm thick multiple QW with a single QW thickness (SQWs), while achieving high reflectivity modulation in excess of 50%. The performance of the fabricated devices is in good agreement with theoretical calculations. The pixelated device shows a high modulation speed of 21.8 MHz over a large aperture and good uniformity. These results show that AFPM with ATQWs is a good candidate as an optical image modulator for 3D image sensing applications. (c) 2012 Optical Society of America