The boffins published a paper in Light: Science & Applications showing a method for growing high-quality multi-quantum well nanowires using semiconductor materials like indium gallium arsenide and indium phosphide.
Optical transmission of information trumps electrical transmission in speed and efficiency, which explains the photonic chip industry's meteoric rise over the past decade. These photonic integrated circuits are now staples in telecommunication devices, autonomous vehicles, biosensors, and even mobile phones.
A glaring flaw in current photonic chips is the absence of an on-chip light source, necessitating external light sources and stymying further miniaturisation.
Nanowire lasers are prime candidates for these light sources, but fabricating high-quality nanowires with smooth sidewalls, controlled dimensions, and precise crystal composition that function at room temperature has been a Herculean task.
TMOS researchers and their collaborators have devised an innovative multi-step facet engineering approach for nanowire growth using selective area epitaxy by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition.
TMOS Ph.D. student Fanlu Zhang, said: "Through this new method of epitaxial growth, we can precisely control the diameter and length of quantum well nanowires with high crystal quality and uniform morphology. This makes it possible to design controllable nanowire optical cavities, thereby enabling the regulation of spatial modes and longitudinal modes."
"By modulating the composition and thickness of quantum wells in the nanowires, the lasing wavelength of the nanowires can be adjusted, achieving coverage of a wide spectral range in the near-infrared telecommunication band," he said.
"The technology we present is well-suited for large-scale epitaxial growth of uniform nanowire arrays. It will enable the batch construction of nanoscale laser light sources in the near-infrared telecommunication band," Zhang added.
TMOS Chief Investigator Lan Fu noted, "This is significant progress towards on-chip light sources and the growth of the photonic chip industry. Importantly, it sets the scene for the mass manufacture of these devices. The next step for this research will be to design and fabricate electrical contacts to achieve electrical injected lasing."