Achievement

Trainee Chris Chase has been busy working on high contrast gratings (HCG), a novel mirror structure with extremely high reflectivity using just a single layer of material. He used HCGs to demonstrate record fast wavelength tunable VCSEL structures. These devices are very exciting as low-cost sources for optical networks. Chris has been working to improve the performance of the HCG VCSEL structure emitting at 1550 nm that he has been developing with another student. They have increased the output power of their device to 1.5 mW and have a wallplug efficiency of ~5%. He also worked with a team of students to simulate, design, and develop a fabrication process for a hollow optical waveguide with low loss using HCGs as reflecting walls and has successfully fabricated devices. They have recently demonstrated a low loss waveguide with lateral confinement using only a planar structure. Further optimization is ongoing on both projects.