Current-injected 1.54 μm light emitting diodes based on erbium-doped GaN

Current-injected 1.54 mu m emitters have been fabricated by heterogeneously integrating metal organic chemical vapor deposition grown Er-doped GaN epilayers and 365 nm nitride light emitting diodes. It was found that the 1.54 mu m emission intensity increases almost linearly with input forward current. The results represent a step toward demonstrating the feasibility for achieving electrically pumped optical amplifiers for optical communication that possess advantages of both semiconductor optical amplifiers and Er-doped fiber amplifiers. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.