Highly stable semiconductor lasers and sensors for III-V and silicon photonic integrated circuits

US11761892B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy · US

Inventors

• Jerry R. Meyer · Catonsville, US
• Igor Vurgaftman · Pikesville, US
• Chadwick Lawrence Canedy · Washington, US
• William W. Bewley · Falls Church, US
• Chul Soo Kim · Springfield, US
• Charles D. Merritt · Fairfax, US
• Michael V. Warren · Arlington, US
• R. Joseph Weiblen · Washington, US
• Mijin Kim · Suwon-si, KR

Key dates

• Filing date: Aug 20, 2021
• Grant date: Sep 19, 2023
• Expiry date: Dec 30, 2041

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H01S2301/17
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

Building blocks are provided for on-chip chemical sensors and other highly-compact photonic integrated circuits combining interband or quantum cascade lasers and detectors with passive waveguides and other components integrated on a III-V or silicon. A MWIR or LWIR laser source is evanescently coupled into a passive extended or resonant-cavity waveguide that provides evanescent coupling to a sample gas (or liquid) for spectroscopic chemical sensing. In the case of an ICL, the uppermost layer of this passive waveguide has a relatively high index of refraction that enables it to form the core of the waveguide, while the ambient air, consisting of the sample gas, functions as the top cladding layer. A fraction of the propagating light beam is absorbed by the sample gas if it contains a chemical species having a fingerprint absorption feature within the spectral linewidth of the laser emission.