Large-area single-crystal indium phosphide laterally grown on patterned silicon-on-insulator

Selective area heteroepitaxy provides an alternate solution for the monolithic integration of high-performance III-V lasers on Si with effective management of crystalline defects. Here, we report large-area single-crystal InP grown on (001) patterned silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers using the lateral aspect ratio trapping (LART) method by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. The InP grown on SOI features a length of hundreds of micrometers and a width of up to 8.5 μm with an “in-plane” configuration. Based on fine-tuned growth conditions, especially in the InP nucleation layer on the Si interface, crystalline defects have been minimized resulting in large-area high-quality materials for active devices. Growth mechanisms describing each stage of epitaxy are presented to explain the difference of lateral growth in small and large material volumes. Comprehensive material characterizations and device implementations were performed on the InP/SOI to characterize its viability as an integration platform for photonics. III-V lasers with micro-cavity and Fabry–Perot cavity were fabricated and statistically analyzed to demonstrate the feasibility of providing photonic function. Attaining large-area InP/SOI addresses the bottleneck of limited III-V material volume in selective epitaxy leading to a critical step toward monolithic integration of III-V on Si. Furthermore, the high-quality InP/SOI could serve as a mini template for regrowth to construct various photonic building blocks. Large-area and high-quality III-V on SOI here ensure LART as an easy, flexible, and tolerable method for the potential realization of fully integrated Si photonics.