Role of aluminum oxide cladding layers in heat conduction of a semiconductor slab with photonic crystal

Abstract

In order to clarify the role of cladding layers in heat transfer in a laser diode, we theoretically investigate heat transfer in a semiconductor slab having two dimensional photonic crystal, i.e. array of air holes. For a photonic crystal laser, temperature increase may be a serious problem since air holes can cause poor heat conduction even if large Q-factor reduces threshold current. Temperature changes calculated for structures with AlOx cladding layers show that the AlOx cladding layers reduce temperature rise down to about 2/5 compared with air-bridge structure.