Abstract
We propose a tunable plasmonic semiconductor laser that exploits loss
perturbation as a tuning mechanism. A metal oxide semiconductor (MOS)
capacitive structure is added on top of an edge-emitting Fabry-Perot
(FP) diode laser, such that a hybrid plasmonic TM mode that overlaps
partly with the MOS capacitor and the semiconductor gain region is
supported as the lasing mode. We also propose the use of a layer of
conductive oxide, e.g., indium tin oxide (ITO), as the semiconductor of
the MOS structure, because the epsilon near zero (ENZ) condition can be
attained therein under accumulation, thereby producing a very large
change in the effective index of the hybrid plasmonic TM mode. The
change in the imaginary part of the effective index is used to tune the
lasing wavelength - exploiting loss perturbation to achieve laser tuning
is paradigm-shifting. The laser proposed operates at telecom
wavelengths, requiring an electrical forward bias to pump the active
layer, and a gate voltage to drive the MOS tuning capacitor. Simulations
yield a tuning range of over 7 nm in the O-band for a 100 μm long FP
laser cavity.