III-nitride nanowire-based lasers for next-generation optoelectronic and display applications

Abstract

III-nitride nanowires (NWs) have emerged as a versatile platform for nanoscale optoelectronics, combining unique attributes such as strain relaxation, defect tolerance, strong carrier confinement, and compatibility with silicon backplanes. Advances in epitaxial growth techniques, including molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and selective-area epitaxy (SAE), have enabled deterministic control over high-quality, compositionally flexible NW arrays. These breakthroughs have led to diverse device architectures, spanning Fabry-Pérot (FP) cavities, whispering gallery modes (WGM), plasmonic resonators, random cavities, and photonic crystal arrays, achieving low-threshold lasing, narrow linewidths, and spectral tunability. NW light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have further demonstrated polarization-free emission, geometry-driven color tuning, and monolithic full-color operation without phosphors, addressing long-standing challenges such as the “green gap” and scalable RGB integration. These structural and device-level advantages are now converging with the stringent requirements of next-generation AR/VR/XR micro-displays, which demand extreme luminance, sub-micron pixel pitches, narrow spectral linewidths, and directional emission for efficient coupling into waveguide optics. While conventional micro-LEDs face severe efficiency bottlenecks at deep submicron scales, NW lasers, particularly photonic-crystal and tunnel-junction surface-emitting designs, offer coherence, spectral purity, and engineered far-fields that are well aligned with immersive display engines. We further link these advances to system-level performance benchmarks, including luminance after optical combiners, spectral stability, power efficiency, and manufacturability. Finally, beyond displays, progress in tunnel junction integration and photonic-crystal NW surface-emitting lasers highlights the future application potential of this technology in on-chip photonic interconnects, quantum light sources, and emerging optical computing paradigms. By bridging nanoscale materials science with application-driven requirements, III-nitride NW lasers are positioned as a transformative platform for both optoelectronics and next-generation display technologies.