Gallium nitride on gallium oxide substrate for integrated nonlinear optics

Gallium Nitride (GaN), being a direct bandgap semiconductor with a wide bandgap and high thermal stability, is attractive for optoelectronic and electronic applications. Furthermore, due to its high optical nonlinearity - the characteristic of all 111-V semiconductors - GaN is also expected to be a suitable candidate for integrated nonlinear photonic circuits for a plethora of apphcations, ranging from on-chip wavelength conversion to quantum computing. Although GaN devices are in commercial production, it still suffers from lack of a suitable substrate material to reduce structural defects like high densities of threading dislocations (TDs), stacking faults, and grain boundaries. These defects significandy deteriorate the optical quality of the epi-grown GaN layer, since they act as non-radiative recombination centers. Recent studies have shown that GaN grown on (-201) β-Gallium Oxide (Ga₂O₃) has superior optical quality due to a better lattice matching as compared to GaN grown on Sapphire (Al₂O₃) [1-3]. In this work, we report on the fabrication of GaN waveguides on GaiOj substrate and their optical characterization to assess their feasibihty for efficient four-wave mixing (FWM).