Metal nanocavity-based lasers show promise for dense integration in nanophotonic devices, thanks to their compact size and lack of crosstalk. Thermal considerations in these devices have been largely overlooked in design, despite the importance of self-heating and heat dissipation to device performance. We discuss the sources of self-heating in electrically-pumped wavelength-scale nanolasers, and the incorporation of these heat sources into a heat dissipation model to calculate laser operating temperature. We apply this thermal model to an example electrically-pumped nanolaser operating at room temperature.

Date Published: 7 March 2014
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 8980, Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices XXII, 898027 (7 March 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2057412

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8980:
Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices XXII
Bernd Witzigmann; Marek Osiński; Fritz Henneberger; Yasuhiko Arakawa, Editor(s)