MoP-ISCS-034 Compound Semiconductor Week 2016

GaAs/AlAs triple-coupled cavity with InAs quantum dots for

ultrafast wavelength conversion devices

X.M. Lu*1, N. Kumagai1, T. Kitada1, and T. Isu1

1
Center for Frontier research of Engineering, Institute of Technology and Science, Tokushima University
Tokushima 770-8506, Japan
*xm-lu@tokushima-u.ac.jp

Abstract— We grew the GaAs/AlAs triple-coupled multilayer cavity structure with InAs QDs, which were embedded
in topside GaAs cavity. The frequency separations of the cavity modes depending on the cavity layer thickness were
measured using reflection spectra. Three reflection dips around telecommunication wavelength of 1.5 µm were due to
the cavity modes and equivalent frequency separation between two adjacent modes was obtained. Time-resolved
four-wave mixing (FWM) signals from the triple-coupled cavity were measured using femtosecond laser system. The
wavelength-converted FWM signal of was clearly observed when the triple-coupled cavity sample was excited by
spectrally shaped laser pulses.

Keywords—quantum dots; four-wave mixing; multilayer cavity; wavelength conversion; molecular beam epitaxy

I. INTRODUCTION
A GaAs/AlAs triple-coupled multilayer cavity structure has been proposed for novel ultrafast wavelength
conversion devices operating in the 1.5 µm waveband for telecommunication systems. [1] Three cavity modes with
the optical frequencies ω1, ω2, and ω3 are realized in the triple-coupled cavity structure that consists of three
cavity layers with the same effective optical thickness. The frequency separation between two adjacent modes is
identical, that is, ω1 - ω2 = ω2 - ω3. The four-wave mixing (FWM) signal with 2ω2 - ω1 should be efficiently
generated in the triple-coupled cavity because the frequency is coincident with another mode frequency, ω3. A
significant improvement in the wavelength conversion is expected by introducing good nonlinear materials such
as InAs quantum dot (QDs) in the cavity. Recently, we have investigated the FWM in GaAs/AlAs triple-coupled
cavity with 3.4 ML InAs QDs, which were embedded in the strain-relaxed In0.35Ga0.65As layer to extend the
resonance wavelength over 1.5 µm.[2] The degenerate FWM signals in the incident pulse spectrum covering the
two cavity-mode wavelength have been clearly observed. However, the wavelength-converted signals were
unclear. The possible reason is that the absorption of the FWM signals by the QDs is more significant than that of
degenerate FWM signals.
II. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
In this study, we grew the GaAs/AlAs triple-coupled multilayer cavity structure with InAs QDs, which were
embedded in GaAs cavity without strain-relaxed layer and has no absorption at 1.5 µm. The structure shown in
Fig. 1 was grown on GaAs (001) substrate by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). After the growth of buffer layer
containing an AlAs/Al0.5Ga0.5As (5 nm/100 nm) etch stopper structure, which is essential for the selective
removal of the GaAs substrate, GaAs/AlAs (111 nm/130 nm) distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) were used for
the series connection of three 2λ cavity layers based on GaAs. Nine layers of InAs QDs were inserted in the
topside GaAs 2λ cavity. The substrate rotation was stopped twice during growth of topside cavity in order to
obtain a thickness distribution.
The frequency separations of the cavity modes depending on the cavity layer thickness were measured using
reflection spectra as shown in Fig. 2. Three reflection dips around telecommunication wavelength of 1.5 µm were
due to the cavity modes and equivalent frequency separation between two adjacent modes was realized using the
thickness distribution in the topside GaAs cavity as shown in Fig. 2. According to FWM process, the input
frequency of ω1 can be quickly converted to the output frequency of ω3 by irradiation using a control beam with
frequency ω2 when the ω2 - ω1 is equal to the ω3 – ω2. Time-resolved FWM signals from the triple-coupled cavity
were measured using femtosecond laser system. The wavelength-converted FWM signal of ω3 was clearly
observed when the triple-coupled cavity sample was excited by spectrally shaped input and control pluses
covering only frequencies of ω1 and ω2, respectively.

[1] T. Kitada, Y. Yasunaga, Y. Nakagawa, K. Morita, and T. Isu, “Wavelength conversion via four-wave mixing in a triple-coupled multilayer
cavity,” Appl. Phys. Lett., vol 103, no 10, Sept. 2013, Art. ID. 101109.
[2] M. Ogarane, Y. Yasunaga, Y. Nakagawa, K. Morita, T. Kitada, and T. Isu, “Four-wave mixing in GaAs/AlAs triple-coupled cavity with
InAs quantum dots” Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., vol 54, no 4S, Mar. 2015, Art ID. 04DG05.

978-1-5090-1964-9/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

MoP-ISCS-034 Compound Semiconductor Week 2016

GaAs/AlAs DBR
111 / 130 nm 111 nm
12 pairs
2λ GaAs 888 nm
InAs QDs
GaAs/AlAs DBR 2.7 ML
111 /130 nm
8.5 pairs
2λ GaAs 888 nm
GaAs/AlAs DBR 111 nm
111/130 nm
8.5 pairs
GaAs thickness distribution
2λ GaAs 888 nm

GaAs/AlAs DBR
111 /130 nm Wafer position Ga cell
12 pairs - 0 +

(001) GaAs Sub.

Fig. 1. Structure of the GaAs/AlAs triple-coupled multilayer cavity with InAs quantum dots.

20 nm 22 nm
8

7
Offset reflectivity values

GaAs thickness distribution

5
18 nm 18 nm

1
21 nm 14 nm
0
1400 1450 1500 1550 1600 1650
Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 3. Reflection spectra measured at various positon of the epitaxy wafer.

978-1-5090-1964-9/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE