University of Illinois

Quantum Electro Opto Systems Sdn. Bhd.

Xindium Technologies, Inc.

R.a. Miller Industries, Inc.

Quantum Electro Opto Systems Sdn. Rhd.

Milton Feng

Nick Holonyak, Jr

Gabriel Walter

Richard Chan

Shyh-Chiang Shen

Han Wui Then

Chao-Hsin Wu

John T Apostolos

William Mouyos

Benjamin G McMahon

Fei Tan

Patricia Bodan

Mong-Kai Wu

David Charles Caruth

David Becher

Adam James

John M Dallesasse

Paul Gili

Xin Yu

Shyh Chiang

Mark Stuenkel

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and methods for making such are provided. The VCSELs include stepped upper reflectors having respective differently-sized apertures. This allows the lower portion of the reflector to have formed therein a wider-diameter aperture to allow for increased current injection. The upper portion of the reflector has formed therein a narrower-diameter, mode-selecting aperture to allow higher-order modes to be reduced, leading to single-mode operation. The VCSELs are thus capable of higher-power emission in a single mode, allowing for longer-distance signaling over optical fiber, despite modal dispersion within the fiber and/or at the coupling between the VCSEL and the fiber. The two differently-sized apertures can be formed via respective lateral oxidation processes following etch-down to form the respective steps of the upper reflector. Differences in composition across the upper reflector results in temperature-dependence of the oxidation process, allowing the apertures to be formed with different sizes.

Single mode VCSELs with low threshold and high speed operation

A method for electrical and optical bistable switching, including the following steps: providing a semiconductor device that includes a semiconductor base region of a first conductivity type between semiconductor collector and emitter regions of a second conductivity type, providing a quantum size region in the base region, and providing base, collector and emitter terminals respectively coupled with the base, collector, and emitter regions; providing input electrical signals with respect to the base, collector, and emitter terminals to obtain an electrical output signal and light emission from the base region; providing an optical resonant cavity that encloses at least a portion of the base region and the light emission therefrom, an optical output signal being obtained from a portion of the light in the optical resonant cavity; and modifying the input electrical signals to switch back and forth between a first state wherein the photon density in the cavity is below a predetermined threshold and the optical output is incoherent, and a second state wherein the photon density in the cavity is above the predetermined threshold and the optical output is coherent, said switching from the first to the second state being implemented by modifying the input electrical signals to reduce optical absorption by collector intra-cavity photon-assisted tunneling, and the switching from the second to the first state being implemented by modifying the input electrical signals to increase photon absorption by collector intra-cavity photon-assisted tunneling.

Transistor laser electrical and optical bistable switching

A rectifier comprising a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structure. The insulator may be a native oxide with an adjacent layer of graphene. In one implementation, the rectifier is used in an electromagnetic energy collector consisting of a planar waveguide formed of multiple material layers having at least two different dielectric constants. MIM rectifiers are aligned with mirrors are formed within the waveguide core. In some arrangements, a plurality of MIM rectifiers are disposed in a column or 3D array beneath each mirror.

Graphene coupled MIM rectifier especially for use in monolithic broadband infrared energy collector

A ring cavity light-emitting transistor device, including: a planar semiconductor structure of a semiconductor base layer of a first conductivity type between semiconductor collector and emitter layers of a second conductivity type; base, collector, and emitter metalizations respectively coupled with the base layer, said collector layer, and said emitter layer, the base metalization including at least one annular ring coupled with a surface of the base layer; and an annular ring-shaped optical resonator in a region of the semiconductor structure generally including the interface of the base and emitter regions; whereby application of electrical signals with respect to the base, collector, and emitter metalizations causes light emission in the base layer that propagates in the ring-shaped optical resonator cavity.

Transistor laser optical switching and memory techniques and devices

The use of rectennas, or antenna-coupled rectifiers, using metal-insulator-metal tunnel diodes as rectifiers for energy conversion has been explored with more fervor recently, given the advances in nanotechnology fabrication and increased resolution of features. Some have made these devices from symmetric metals (e.g. Ni&#x2014;NiO&#x2014;Ni) and asymmetric metals (e.g. Al&#x2014;AlOx/Pt), and have used deposited oxides as well as native oxides. One key to obtaining a highly asymmetric device with efficient current generation needed for high conversion efficiency is to instead use dissimilar metals and a thin reproducible oxide. The described method allows for a thin, reproducible native oxide of nickel be integrated with any antenna metal to overcome oxide surface roughness problems that typically hamper the practicality of these devices.

Antenna-coupled metal-insulator-metal rectifier

A method for amplifying an input optical signal includes the following steps: providing a light-emitting transistor device having a base region between collector and emitter regions; applying electrical signals with respect to the base, collector, and emitter regions to produce light emission from the base region of the light-emitting transistor device; and applying the input optical signal to the base region of the light-emitting transistor device to produce an amplified optical output from the base region.

Opto-electronic devices and methods

A method for producing light emission, including the following steps: providing a transistor structure that includes a semiconductor base region disposed between a semiconductor emitter region and a semiconductor collector region; providing a cascade region between the base region and the collector region, the cascade region having a plurality of sequences of quantum size regions, the quantum size regions of the sequences varying, in the direction toward the collector region, from a relatively higher energy state to a relatively lower energy state; providing emitter, base and collector electrodes respectively coupled with the emitter, base, and collector regions; and applying electrical signals with respect to the emitter, base, and collector electrodes to cause and control light emission from the cascade region.

Semiconductor device and method for producing light and laser emission

An opto-electronic oscillator circuit, including: an opto-electronic circuit loop including an optical modulator that receives a first electrical signal and produces an optical output signal coupled with an optical resonator, a photodetector circuit optically coupled with the optical resonator, and a phase shifter coupled with the photodetector circuit for producing a phase shifted output signal that is fed back as the first electrical signal; an optical loop comprising the optical coupling of the optical resonator with the photodetector; and an electrical feedback circuit loop for coupling the first electrical signal with the photodetector circuit.

Opto-electronic oscillator and method

A method for producing light emission from a semiconductor structure, including the following steps: providing a semiconductor structure that includes a first semiconductor junction between an emitter region of a first conductivity type and a base region of a second conductivity type opposite to that of the first conductivity type, and a second semiconductor junction between the base region and a drain region; providing, within the base region, a region exhibiting quantum size effects; providing an emitter electrode coupled with the emitter region; providing a base/drain electrode coupled with the base region and the drain region; and applying signals with respect to the emitter and base/drain electrodes to obtain light emission from the semiconductor structure.

Two terminal light emitting and lasing devices and methods

A semiconductor light emitting device, including: a heterojunction bipolar light-emitting transistor having a base region between emitter and collector regions; emitter, base, and collector electrodes for coupling electrical signals with the emitter, base, and collector regions, respectively; and a quantum size region in the base region; the base region including a first base sub-region on the emitter side of the quantum size region, and a second base sub-region on the collector side of the quantum size region; and the first and second base sub-regions having asymmetrical band structures.

Light emitting and lasing semiconductor devices and methods

A method for producing light emission from a two terminal semiconductor device with improved efficiency, includes the following steps: providing a layered semiconductor structure including a semiconductor drain region comprising at least one drain layer, a semiconductor base region disposed on the drain region and including at least one base layer, and a semiconductor emitter region disposed on a portion of the base region and comprising an emitter mesa that includes at least one emitter layer; providing, in the base region, at least one region exhibiting quantum size effects; providing a base/drain electrode having a first portion on an exposed surface of the base region and a further portion coupled with the drain region, and providing an emitter electrode on the surface of the emitter region; applying signals with respect to the base/drain and emitter electrodes to obtain light emission from the base region; and configuring the base/drain and emitter electrodes for substantial uniformity of voltage distribution in the region therebetween.

Light emitting and lasing semiconductor methods and devices

A method for producing an optical output in substantially linear relationship with an input electrical AC signal, including the following steps: providing a light-emitting transistor having emitter, base, and collector regions, the light-emitting transistor producing light emission from its base region in response to electrical signals applied with respect to the emitter, base, and collector regions; applying a signal derived from the input signal to the light-emitting transistor; deriving a feedback signal from an electrical operating signal of the light-emitting transistor; applying a predistortion factor to the derived feedback signal to produce a predistorted feedback signal; and combining the predistorted feedback signal with the input signal to produce the signal derived from thr input signal; whereby the light emission comprises an optical output in substantially linear relationship with the input signal.

Method and apparatus for producing linearized optical signals

A method for producing a high frequency optical signal component representative of a high frequency electrical input signal component, includes the following steps: providing a semiconductor transistor structure that includes a base region of a first semiconductor type between semiconductor emitter and collector regions of a second semiconductor type; providing, in the base region, at least one region exhibiting quantum size effects; providing emitter, base, and collector electrodes respectively coupled with the emitter, base, and collector regions; applying electrical signals, including the high frequency electrical signal component, with respect to the emitter, base, and collector electrodes to produce output spontaneous light emission from the base region, aided by the quantum size region, the output spontaneous light emission including the high frequency optical signal component representative of the high frequency electrical signal component; providing an optical cavity for the light emission in the region between the base and emitter electrodes; and scaling the lateral dimensions of the optical cavity to control the speed of light emission response to the high frequency electrical signal component.

High speed light emitting semiconductor methods and devices

A two terminal semiconductor device for producing light emission in response to electrical signals, includes: a terminal-less semiconductor base region disposed between a semiconductor emitter region and a semiconductor collector region having a tunnel junction adjacent the base region; the base region having a region therein exhibiting quantum size effects; an emitter terminal and a collector terminal respectively coupled with the emitter region and the collector region; whereby application of the electrical signals with respect to the emitter and collector terminals, causes light emission from the base region. Application of the electrical signals is operative to reverse bias the tunnel junction. Holes generated at the tunnel junction recombine in the base region with electrons flowing into the base region, resulting in the light emission. The region exhibiting quantum size effects is operative to aid recombination.

A field-effect transistor device, including: a semiconductor heterostructure comprising, in a vertically stacked configuration, a semiconductor gate layer between semiconductor source and drain layers, the layers being separated by heterosteps; the gate layer having a thickness of less than about 100 Angstroms; and source, gate, and drain electrodes respectively coupled with said source, gate, and drain layers. Separation of the gate by heterosteps, rather than an oxide layer, has very substantial advantages.

Growing community of inventors

Champaign, IL, United States of America

Milton Feng