Thermal and optical simulation of InP-on-Si nanocavity lasers

Abstract

Accurate prediction of thermal effects is important for scaled photonic devices as excessive heating may lead to device failure. This paper addresses numerical modeling of thermal properties of InP nanocavity lasers on Si combined with optical simulations in Lumerical and lasing threshold measurements. Different geometries with diameters ranging from 200 nm to 2 µm are studied, revealing an optimal diameter of around 1000 nm when considering both thermal effects and optical confinement. The temperature profile of the nanocavity lasers reveals that thinning the underlying SiO2 is the most efficient way to improve the thermal properties of the nanocavity lasers.