Reliable, efficient electrically pumped silicon-based lasers would enable full integration of photonic and electronic circuits, but have previously only been realized by wafer bonding. Here, we demonstrate continuous-wave InAs/GaAs quantum dot lasers directly grown on silicon substrates with a low threshold current density of 62.5 A cm ^-2, a room-temperature output power exceeding 105 mW and operation up to 120 ^oC. Over 3,100 h of continuous-wave operating data have been collected, giving an extrapolated mean time to failure of over 100,158 h. The realization of high-performance quantum dot lasers on silicon is due to the achievement of a low density of threading dislocations on the order of 105 cm^-2 in the III-V epilayers by combining a nucleation layer and dislocation filter layers with in situ thermal annealing. These results are a major advance towards reliable and cost-effective silicon-based photonic-electronic integration.

Read full paper: Nature Photonics, Vol. 10 (2016)