Heterogeneous Silicon/III–V Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

We report high output power and high-gain semiconductor optical amplifiers integrated on a heterogeneous silicon/III–V photonics platform. The devices produce 25 dB of unsaturated gain for the highest gain design, and 14 dBm of saturated output power for the highest output power design. The amplifier structure is also suitable for lasers, and can be readily integrated with a multitude of silicon photonic circuit components. These devices are useful for a wide range of photonic integrated circuits. We show a design method for optimizing the amplifier for the desired characteristics. The amplifier incorporates a low loss and low reflection transition between the heterogeneous active region and a silicon waveguide, and we report transition loss below 1 dB across the entire measurement range and parasitic reflection coefficient from the transition below 1 · 10−3 .