Long wavelength photonic integrated circuit surface-emitting lasers (PICSELs)

We developed a new technology platform for making InP-based photonic integrated circuits that are compatible with the surface-emitting laser technology. Making use of the property that InP being a transparent material at 1310 nm and 1550 nm wavelengths, we created 3-D photonic integrated circuits (PICs) by directing the light beams in the in-plane and surface normal directions within the InP substrate. This additional flexibility in beam routing allows significant size reduction and process simplification without sacrificing the device performance. The innovative 3-D PICSEL technology platform can be easily extended to create surface-emitting lasers integrated with power monitoring detectors, microlenses, external modulators, amplifiers, and other passive and active components. The added functionality can produce cost effective solutions to high end laser transmitters required for datacom and short range telecom and storage networks and other cost and performance sensitive applications. We present results for 1310 nm PICSELs at 2.5 Gb/s and 10 Gb/s operation without active thermal electric cooling and optical isolators