Demonstration of transverse-magnetic dominant gain in quantum dot

semiconductor optical amplifiers

Nami Yasuoka, Kenichi Kawaguchi, Hiroji Ebe, Tomoyuki Akiyama, Mitsuru Ekawa et al.

Citation: Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 101108 (2008); doi: 10.1063/1.2883978

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2883978
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 APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 92, 101108 共2008兲

Demonstration of transverse-magnetic dominant gain in quantum dot

semiconductor optical amplifiers
Nami Yasuoka,1,2,a兲 Kenichi Kawaguchi,1,2 Hiroji Ebe,3 Tomoyuki Akiyama,4
Mitsuru Ekawa,1,2 Shinsuke Tanaka,5 Ken Morito,5 Ayahito Uetake,5 Mitsuru Sugawara,1,2,4
and Yasuhiko Arakawa3,6
1
Fujitsu Ltd., 10-1 Morinosato-Wakamiya, Atsugi, Kanagawa 243-0197, Japan
2
Optoelectronic Industry and Technology Development Association (OITDA), 1-20-10 Sekiguchi, Bunkyo,
Tokyo 112-0014, Japan
3
Nanoelectronics Collaborative Research Center (NCRC), Institute of Industrial Science (IIS),
University of Tokyo, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan
4
QD Laser Inc., 10-1 Morinosato-Wakamiya, Atsugi, Kanagawa 243-0197, Japan
5
Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., 10-1 Morinosato-Wakamiya, Atsugi, Kanagawa 243-0197, Japan
6
Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), University of Tokyo, Tokyo 153-8904,
Japan
共Received 24 September 2007; accepted 30 January 2008; published online 11 March 2008兲
We demonstrated transverse-magnetic 共TM兲-mode dominated gain at the 1.5 ␮m wavelength in
semiconductor optical amplifiers 共SOAs兲 with columnar quantum dots 共QDs兲. We show that we can
control the polarization dependence of optical gain in QD-SOAs by changing the height and
tensile-strained barrier of columnar QDs. The TM mode gain is 17.3 dB and a gain of over 10 dB
was attained over a wide wavelength range of 200 nm. The saturation output power is 19.5 dBm at
1.55 ␮m. © 2008 American Institute of Physics. 关DOI: 10.1063/1.2883978兴

Quantum dot 共QD兲 semiconductor optical amplifiers
共SOAs兲 are prospective key devices for next-generation
broadband optical networks due to their distinctive features,
which include high saturation output power, broadband gain,
and high-speed response.1–3 Polarization-insensitive optical
characteristics are required in many current optical commu-
nications systems. However, QD SOAs grown by using the
conventional Stranski–Krastanov 共SK兲 mode exhibit only
transverse-electric 共TE兲-mode gain and never respond to
transverse-magnetic 共TM兲-mode light. It is crucial for the
QD SOAs to have sufficient TM-dominant gain to achieve
the polarization insensitiveness. The polarization properties
are due to the SK grown QD structures of the half-oval
shapes and biaxial compressive strains. In these structures,
electronic states are quantized strongly in the vertical direc-
tion and valence bands are split into the heavy-hole band and
light-hole band so that the TE-mode element of the optical
transition is predominant. In attempts to overcome the prob-
lem, the relationships between the QD structures and their
optical properties have been investigated.4–8 It is shown that
TM polarized photoluminescence can be observed and in-
creased with the dot heights, compositions, and strains. How-
ever, there has been no report on the device characteristics.
To realize the TM-dominant gains in the QD SOAs, the op-
tical properties of QDs should be precisely controllable as
well as sufficiently sensitive to the TM-mode light since the
confinement factor of TM mode is smaller than that of TE
mode in the standard waveguide and the device gain charac-
teristics are very sensitive to the material gain.
In this work, we fabricated QD SOAs, operating at
1.5 ␮m wavelength, by using a unique dot stricture, i.e., co-
lumnar InAs QDs surrounded by the strained barriers on an
InP substrate. TM-mode-dominated gains are obtained in
SOAs with the unique dot structure. We show that we can
a兲
Electronic mail: yasuoka.nami@jp.fujitsu.com.
control the optical polarization of SOAs by adjusting the
height of the columnar QDs and the strain of the barrier
layer.
We have theoretically predicted that TM-mode element
of the optical transition increased due to the high aspect ratio
of QDs and/or the adjustment of the biaxial strains in QDs
from compressive to tensile by using the strained side
barriers.9 We adopted closely stacked InAs QDs to fabricate
high aspect ratio of InAs QDs, namely, columnar QDs,10
which were grown by using metal-organic vapor-phase epi-
taxy. Figure 1 shows a schematic image of the columnar
QDs. The columnar QDs were formed of several repetitions
of 1.7 ML InAs QDs and 2.0 ML InGaAsP-tensile-strained
barrier layers. The density of the columnar QDs was 7.5
⫻ 1010 cm−2. The base shape of the QD is elliptical, whose
major axis in 关1-10兴 is 22 nm and minor axis in 关110兴 is
15 nm. We controlled the height and strain by varying the
number of stacked layers and the composition of the
InGaAsP-tensile-strained barrier. The densities and the size
of the columnar QDs were evaluated by an atomic force
microscope 共AFM兲 and cross-sectional transmission electron
microscope. In order to predict the gain-polarization proper-
FIG. 1. Schematic image of the columnar QDs fabricated by alternately
stacking InAs and InGaAsP tensile-strained barrier layers.

0003-6951/2008/92共10兲/101108/3/$23.00 92, 101108-1 © 2008 American Institute of Physics

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 101108-2 Yasuoka et al.
FIG. 2. 共a兲 Normalized TE- and TM-mode PL intensity vs dot height. The
strains of barriers are changed from 0.5% to 4.2%. 共b兲 Normalized TE- and
TM-mode PL intensities vs tensile strain of barrier. The heights of columnar
QDs are changed from 3 to 25 nm.
ties of QD SOA as precisely as possible, we measured TE-
and TM-mode photoluminescence 共PL兲 intensities from the
共1-10兲 edge facets of the samples, which have a slab-
waveguide structure. These structures are similar to the SOA
devices except for carrier and optical confinement structures
in a lateral direction, as shown later. The slab-waveguide
structure consists of a 100 nm InP buffer layer, a 100 nm
InGaAsP layer, a columnar QD layer, a 50 nm InGaAsP
layer, and a 3 ␮m InP cladding layer, producing the ampli-
fied emissions and enhancing the polarization difference
共ITE − ITM兲 of the PL intensity. The measurements were per-
formed at room temperature. The excitation laser was a
Ti-sapphire laser with a wavelength of 810 nm and it was
focused on the surface near the edge facet. Excitation power
was 2.3 kW/ cm2.
The height of columnar QDs should be 22 nm and the
tensile strain in the side barrier should be 2.0% to realize the
polarization insensitivity of QDs in our calculation.9 We var-
ied these parameters and systematically investigated their po-
larization characteristics. Figure 2 shows the dependence of
the normalized TE- and TM-mode PL intensity defined as
ITE = ITE / 共ITE + ITM兲 and ITM = ITM / 共ITE + ITM兲, respectively, at
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Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 101108 共2008兲
each ground state with the wavelengths between 1500 and
1680 nm. The height of the columnar QDs was changed
from 3 to 25 nm by changing the number of stacks and the
barrier strain was changed from 0.5% to 4.2% by adjusting
the InGaAsP composition. As the height of columnar QDs
and/or the tensile strain in the barrier is increased, the nor-
malized TM-mode PL intensity increases and the PL inten-
sity becomes equal. The tendencies are similar to our calcu-
lation. These results indicate that the polarization of
columnar QDs can be controlled from the TE dominant to
TM dominant by adjusting both columnar QD height and the
tensile strain in the barrier. Note that the value of the tensile
strain of barrier is about 4% when the TE and TM PL inten-
sities become equal, as shown in Fig. 2共b兲, which is twice as
large as that of 2% in our calculation. This is because the
wetting layers were neglected in the calculation models. The
wetting layers, which have the opposite strain of the barrier
layers, obstruct the effect of the tensile-strained barrier.
Modified calculation models including the wetting layers
confirmed that the tensile strain of the barriers should be
increased from 2% to 4% to realize the polarization insensi-
tivity, which was consistent with the PL experiments.
To demonstrate the controllability of the optical polariza-
tion in columnar QD-SOAs, we used TE-gain dominant and
TM-gain dominant columnar QDs in the active layers of
SOA. The height of columnar QDs ranged from 3 to 25 nm
and the strain in the barrier ranged from 0.5% to 3.7%. The
conditions for growing the columnar QDs are described
elsewhere.10 InAs columnar QDs are embedded in an
InGaAsP waveguide. We designed the waveguide structure
so that the polarization difference of waveguide confinement
factor was suppressed to less than 20%. We introduced a
tilted waveguide having an 8° off angle and an antireflection
coating, to reduce reflections at the chip facets.2 The SOA
chip length was 1000 ␮m.
We measured the chip gain spectra of TE and TM polar-
izations at wavelengths ranging from 1350 to 1610 nm. The
SOA chip was characterized for cw signals and the SOA
current was set to 300 mA. Figure 3共a兲 shows the character-
istics of the SOA with 11 nm high columnar QDs and 1.0%
tensile strain in the barrier. TM gain appeared for the 1.5 ␮m
band but TE gain was still dominant. Figure 3共b兲 shows the
characteristics of the SOA with 22 nm high columnar QDs
and barrier tensile strain of 3.7%. TM-dominant gain was
obtained. This tendency is consistent with the PL spectra for
the same columnar QDs. By controlling the columnar QD
heights and barrier strain, we could change the gain polar-
ization from TE-mode dominant to TM-mode dominant. The
bandwidth of the TM-dominant gain of more than 10 dB in
22 nm columnar QD-SOAs was 200 nm, corresponding to
the wavelength range from 1400 to 1600 nm. The bandwidth
of the TE mode for the same device was 140 nm, corre-
sponding to the wavelength range from 1410 to 1550 nm.
The TM gain was 17.3 dB, TE gain was 11.1 dB, and polar-
ization gain difference was 6.2 dB at 1.55 ␮m. A high chip-
out 3 dB saturation output power of 19.5 dBm was obtained
for the TM mode 共Fig. 4兲.
In conclusion, we have demonstrated that we can control
the polarization dependence of optical gain by changing the
height of columnar QDs and barrier tensile strain. We
achieved columnar QD-SOAs having TM-mode-dominant
gain at the wavelength of the 1.5 ␮m band. The TM-mode
gain was 17.3 dB, the bandwidth of the TM-mode gain of
 101108-3 Yasuoka et al.
FIG. 3. 共a兲 Chip gain spectra between 1370 and 1610 nm with 11 nm high
columnar QDs and barrier tensile strain of 1.0%. 共b兲 Chip gain spectra
between 1370 and 1610 nm with 22 nm high columnar QDs and barrier
tensile strain of 3.7%.
over 10 dB was a broad 200 nm, and the saturation output
power of the TM mode was 19.5 dBm at 1.55 ␮m. This
means that the columnar QDs can be used for high-
performance and polarization-insensitive SOAs.
Authors thank Professor O. Wada and Professor T. Kita
of Kobe University for useful discussion on polarization de-
pendent gain measurements. This work was supported by the
IT Program of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science, and Technology, and the Photonic Network
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Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 101108 共2008兲
FIG. 4. Chip gain characteristics at 1.55 ␮m.
Project, which is managed by the Optoelectronic Industry
and Technology Development Association 共OITDA兲 under
contract with the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and
Industry.
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