Quantum well interband semiconductor lasers highly tolerant to dislocations

III-V semiconductor lasers integrated on Si-based photonic platforms are eagerly awaited by the industry for mass-scale applications, from interconnect to on-chip sensing. The current understanding is that only quantum dot lasers can reasonably operate at the high dislocation densities generated by the III-V-on-Si heteroepitaxy, which induces high non-radiative carrier recombination rates. Here we propose a strategy based on a type-II band alignment to fabricate quantum well lasers highly tolerant to dislocations. A mid-IRGaInSb/InAs interband cascade laser grown on Si exhibits performances similar to those of its counterpart grown on the native GaSb substrate, in spite of a dislocation density in the 10(8) cm(-2) range. Over 3800 h of continuous-wave operation data have been collected, giving an extrapolated mean time to failure exceeding 312,000 h. This validates the proposed strategy and opens the way to new integrated laser development. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

This study proposes a strategy based on type-II band alignment to fabricate quantum well lasers highly tolerant to dislocations, with a mid-IR GaInSb/InAs interband cascade laser grown on Si exhibiting performances similar to those grown on the native GaSb substrate. The continuous-wave operation data collected over 3800 hours validates the proposed strategy and opens the way to new integrated laser development.