We investigate the demonstration and quantification of the strong coupling between excitons and guided photons in a GaN slab waveguide. The dispersions of waveguide polaritons are measured from T = 6 to 300 K through gratings. They are carefully analyzed within four models based on different assumptions, in order to assess the strong-coupling regime. We prove that the guided photons and excitons are strongly coupled at all investigated temperatures, with a small (11%) dependence on the temperature. However, the values of the Rabi splitting strongly vary among the four models: the "coupled oscillator" model overestimates the coupling; the analytical "Elliott-Tanguy" model precisely describes the dielectric susceptibility of GaN near the excitonic transition, leading to a Rabi splitting equal to 82 ± 10 meV for fundamental transverse-electric mode; the experimental ellipsometry-based model leads to smaller values of 55 ± 6 meV. We evidence that, for waveguides including active layers with large oscillator strengths, as required for room-temperature polaritonic devices, a strong bending of the modes' dispersion is not necessarily the signature of the strong coupling, which requires for its reliable assessment a precise analysis of the material dielectric susceptibility.

Low-threshold lasing under pulsed optical pumping is demonstrated at room temperature for III-nitride microdisks with InGaN/GaN quantum wells on Si in the blue spectral range. Thresholds in the range of 18 kW/cm 2 have been achieved along with narrow linewidths of 0.07 nm and a large peak to background dynamic of 300. We compare this threshold range with the one that can be calculated using a rate equation model. We show that thresholds in the few kW/cm 2 range constitute the best that can be achieved with III-nitride quantum wells at room temperature. The sensitivity of lasing on the fabrication process is also discussed.

Ultraviolet microdisk lasers are integrated monolithi-cally into photonic circuits using a III-nitride on silicon platform with gallium nitride (GaN) as the main waveguiding layer. The photonic circuits consist of a microdisk and a pulley waveguide terminated by out-coupling gratings. We measure quality factors up to 3500 under continuous-wave excitation. Lasing is observed from 374 nm to 399 nm under pulsed excitation, achieving low threshold energies of 0.14 mJ/cm 2 per pulse (threshold peak powers of 35 kW/cm 2). A large peak to background dynamic of around 200 is observed at the out-coupling grating for small gaps of 50 nm between the disk and waveguide. These devices operate at the limit of what can be achieved with GaN in terms of operation wavelength.

On-chip microlaser sources in the blue constitute an important building block for complex integrated photonic circuits on silicon. We have developed photonic circuits operating in the blue spectral range based on microdisks and bus waveguides in III-nitride on silicon. We report on the interplay between microdisk-waveguide coupling and its optical properties. We observe critical coupling and phase matching, i.e. the most efficient energy transfer scheme, for very short gap sizes and thin waveguides (g = 45 nm and w = 170 nm) in the spontaneous emission regime. Whispering gallery mode lasing is demonstrated for a wide range of parameters with a strong dependence of the threshold on the loaded quality factor. We show the dependence and high sensitivity of the output signal on the coupling. Lastly, we observe the impact of processing on the tuning of mode resonances due to the very short coupling distances. Such small footprint on-chip integrated microlasers providing maximum energy transfer into a photonic circuit have important potential applications for visible-light communication and lab-on-chip bio-sensors.

Nanophotonic circuits using group III-nitrides on silicon are still lacking one key component: efficient electrical injection. In this paper we demonstrate an electrical injection scheme using a metal microbridge contact in thin III-nitride on silicon mushroom-type microrings that is compatible with integrated nanophotonic circuits with the goal of achieving electrically injected lasing. Using a central buried n-contact to bypass the insulating buffer layers, we are able to underetch the microring, which is essential for maintaining vertical confinement in a thin disk. We demonstrate direct current room-temperature electroluminescence with 440 mW/cm 2 output power density at 20 mA from such microrings with diameters of 30 to 50 µm. The first steps towards achieving an integrated photonic circuit are demonstrated.

Exciton-photon coupling in a waveguide geometry is attracting more and more interest in the field of polaritonics. Waveguide polaritons are obtained when the exciton and the guided mode of a photonic waveguide are brought in the strong coupling regime, in strong analogy with cavity polaritons in Fabry-Perot resonators. One of the first demonstrations of waveguide polaritons was reported in a waveguide embedding InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells, with a Rabi splitting of 6 meV [Walker et al., APL 102, 012109 (2013) and Nat. Comm. 6, 8317 (2015)], leading to the observation of ultra-low power temporal solitons at T=10K. Nitride materials offer the possibility to investigate polariton physics up to room temperature thanks to the large binding energy and large oscillator strength of the excitons in GaN. The first demonstration of strong coupling in nitrides waveguides was based on InGaN multiple quantum wells, with a Rabi splitting of 63 meV at 4K, and a strong coupling observed up to T=100K [Ciers et al., Phys. Rev. Applied 7, 034019 (2015)]. In the meantime, we have achieved polariton lasing in a waveguide geometry for the first time in another wide bandgap material, ZnO [Jamadi et al., Arxiv:1708.00501], up to room-temperature.Here we report the enhancement of the Rabi splitting in a bulk GaN slab waveguide, compared to the case of multiple quantum wells. The Rabi splitting in a monomode GaN waveguide reaches 140meV, and slightly decreases to 100 meV at T=300K. To measure it, we have fabricated diffraction gratings on the waveguides and performed polarization-resolved Fourier-space imaging of the TE and TM modes dispersion. Besides, through Fourier-space imaging and spectral filtering of the photoluminescence image we have measured the polaritons propagation length as a function of the detuning: at T=10K it amounts to 10µm at zero detuning and 30µm at more negative detuning (= -Rabi); most importantly, similar propagation lengths are observed up to room temperature.The increased Rabi splitting and large propagation lengths pave the way for the demonstration of polariton lasers at room temperature in a GaN waveguide, and for a control of the nonlinear processes in polariton fluids of light.

The integration of nitride semiconductors on a silicon platform is a very promising field for nanophotonic applications in the UV-blue spectral range. Efficient sources are a main topic that can be achieved by compact microlasers based on GaN/AlN and InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQW) grown on a silicon substrate. The epitaxy of these structures is performed by the controlled-growth of an AlN and GaN buffer layers to prevent from dislocations. To obtain versatile and efficient micro-emitters, the technological development of micro-resonator has been improved for nitride MQW micro-disks on silicon. This unique Nitride-on-Silicon platform has been allowed by releasing the micro-disk membrane with selective under-etching of the silicon substrate. For integrated photonics applications, these micro-disks can be electrically powered but also coupled to optical waveguides to a better extract of the emission. We have already shown that we can reach a few thousand for the quality factor of the microdisks with nitride MQW grown by MBE1 but also in nitride-on-silicon photonic crystal cavities2. The laser emission of the microdisks under optical pumping and at room temperature was obtained over a broad spectral range extending from 275 nm to 470 nm1.Here we investigate the physics of the micro-resonators with InGaN/GaN MQW grown by MOCVD. Photoluminescence (PL) emission is probed under pulsed optical pumping at 266 nm. Laser emission is reached at room temperature at 390 nm. We focus on the gain properties of the InGaN/GaN MQW active layer. We have investigated the temperature dependence of the microlaser threshold vs temperature. We show that the typical T0 for these microlaser is elevated (T0=77K), meaning that the temperature dependence around room temperature is reduced. We also model the spectra to extract the carrier density at threshold. And we will draw up a comparison with InGaN/GaN MQW microlasers grown by MBE.References: 1M. Mexis et al., Optics Letters, vol. 36 p.2203 (2011), Sellés et al., APL 109, 231101 (2016) and Sci. Rep. 6, 21650 (2016), 2F. Tabataba-Vakili et al., APL 2017