Dilute nitride resonant-cavity light emitting diode

Resonant cavity LEDs (RCLEDs) are a viable and low-cost alternative light source to lasers for optical communication systems in the 1.3 µm O-band. Most work in this area has been conducted on InP-based material, which is inherently costly, devices often require cooling and the refractive index contrast for constructing mirrors is low. Here, we demonstrate a high-performance GaAs-based RCLED using a dilute nitride GaInNAs active layer emitting in the 1.3 μm wavelength window. While previous 1.3 µm RCLEDs have used metallic mirrors on the back of the device, we exploit the high refractive index contrast of the GaAs/AlAs system to place Distributed Bragg mirrors on both sides of the active layer and achieve superior performance. The external quantum efficiency of the devices is 20% and the full width at half maximum of the emission spectrum is 5.2 nm at room temperature, into a narrow angular cone. The emission power from an 88 μm diameter aperture is 0.5 mW, which, together with the narrow spectral linewidth, makes the device suitable for deployment in a coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) communications system.