Thin-film vertical monolithic III-nitride optoelectronic system

What is it about?

III-nitride multi-quantum well (MQW) diodes are multifunctional devices and exhibit intriguing spectral overlap between emission and responsivity spectra. By reducing device thickness, thin-film vertical (TFV) MQW diodes not only inhibit confined optical waveguide modes but also achieve mode-matching light emission or detection naturally. Here, we monolithically integrated TFV MQW diodes on a III-nitrideon-silicon platform that separately serve as a light-emitting diode and a photodiode. The experimental results confirm that TFV devices reduce the number of confined waveguide modes and eliminate transverse light crosstalk, which leads to a significant reduction in the background photocurrent level at 10-9 A. The monolithic III-nitride optoelectronic systems demonstrate the great potential for full-duplex visible light communication and proximity sensing.

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Why is it important?

This work proposes an ultra-thin vertical light-emitting device model with a thickness smaller than the emission wavelength （d<λ）and demonstrates an ultra-thin transceiver. The device effectively suppresses optical crosstalk within integrated optoelectronic chips and enhances their response speed. In visible light communication (VLC), it offers a low-crosstalk, full-duplex, chip-level transceiver solution that holds promise for improving communication performances. In optical sensing, it simplifies circuit design by reducing the need for DC filtering, making it particularly suitable for monitoring ultra-low-frequency signals such as pulse and respiration.