Racetrack laser design

Researchers at UCSB in conjunction with Intel have come up with a novel design for a new laser resonator.

The resonator features a racetrack shaped design that will ultimately reduce the cost of production and improve efficiency.

The integration of a racetrack laser with a photodetector on the hybrid silicon evanescent device platform demonstrates the potential to realize practical photonic integrated circuits on a silicon substrate. These two types of photonic devices are fabricated on a single active region design showing the flexibility of the hybrid silicon evanescent device platform. On-chip testing and characterization of the laser simplifies the testing by eliminating facet polishing and characterization uncertainties caused by coupling losses. We have demonstrated a monolithic laser with output powers up to 29 mW operating up to 60 C in the range of 1590nm.

New blue-violet laser

Researchers at UCSB led by Shuji Nakamura, winner of the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize have developed a new way to produce laser diodes that put out blue-violet light.

in fact, these are the world first nonpolar gallium nitride blue-violet laser diodes.

The nonpolar blue-violet laser diodes have numerous commercial applications, including high-density optical data storage for high definition displays and video, optical sensing, and medical applications. Because of the shorter wavelength of emission in these devices, they can accommodate higher densities of optical storage than conventional red-laser based systems.

Said Nakamura: "Our initial results of the first violet nonpolar laser diodes with a low threshold current density demonstrate a high possibility that current c-plane violet laser diodes used for HD-DVD and Blue Ray DVD could soon be replaced with nonpolar violet laser diodes, which require lower operating power and have longer lifetimes.

Intel, UCSB HSL laser chip

Intel and UCSB have developed a hybrid silicon laser and both emits and guides light. This could have wide-ranging effects on the telecommunications and computer industry.

This breakthrough addresses one of the last major barriers to producing low-cost, high-bandwidth silicon photonics devices for use inside and around future computers and data centers.

It’s pretty easy to imagine very high bandwidth connections between devices that would allow all sorts of computing extensions using less space on the desktop and without one central "box" that many of us have become used to.

Continue reading Intel, UCSB HSL laser chip