Lasing in GaAs-based nanowires grown by selective-area MOVPE

Abstract

Recently, semiconductor subwavelength nanowires (NWs) have been demonstrated to show laser emission. Representative semiconductor materials fabricating NW lasers are ZnO, GaN and Cad's, etc. Such NW lasers are currently among the smallest known lasing devices, with lengths between one and several tens micrometers and diameter that can be significantly smaller than the emission wavelength in vacuum. For a single-crystalline NW, the end facets form natural mirror surface that create an axial resonator. That is, one-dimensional semiconductor NWs not only act as a gain medium but also a waveguide and a Fabry-Pérot resonator, which provide coherent feedback. The light-emitting capability of the NWs, combined with their other unique features that arise due to their one dimensionality, make them particularly interesting to consider as a candidates for components of future nanoscale photonic systems. However, most advances of NW lasers were successfully realized via wide-bandgap semiconductor materials, giving an ultraviolet or blue laser emission, and little investigation of NW lasers in near-infrared spectral range was reported. Here we describe the growth of GaAs-based NWs using selective-area metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (SA-MOVPE) and their near-infrared lasing at 810–820 nm wavelengths, inside GaAs/GaAsP core-shell NWs.