Alcatel Thales III-V lab, France (III-V lab)

Alcatel Thales III-V Lab (short name "III-V LAB") is a new private non-profit organisation jointly established by Alcatel and Thales on 1st July 2004, under the French Economic Interest Group (GIE) status. Relying on the teams and equipment coming from Alcatel Research and Innovation on one hand and from the Thales Research and Technology (TRT) technological platform and devices department on the other hand, it concentrates in a single entity the most advanced industrial research skills in the field of III-V semiconductors in Europe; it staff amounts to 100 people, most of them being highly qualified recognised experts. The purpose of Alcatel Thales III-V Lab is to perform research on components, from the basic studies to the transfer for industrialisation, by exploiting the synergies between the technologies developed for various markets addressed by Thales and Alcatel, such as telecom, space, defence and security. The streamlining of the research work performed within the Group, allows to strengthen the efforts above the critical mass and to increase the added value through the existing synergies. Main research topics are:

• optical sources and detectors for telecom 10-40Gb/s,
• micro/nano-electronics circuits for telecom 40Gb/s (analogue and digital),
• high rate optical links,
• high brightness semiconductor lasers,
• quantum cascade semiconductor lasers,
• microwave photonics,
• microwave components based on GaN (high yield, wide band),
• high resolution imagery.

Alcatel Thales III-V Lab facilities, located in Marcoussis and Orsay, include 4000 m2 of clean rooms, advanced growth facilities (MOCVD, MBE) and material processing equipment (RIE, ICP, CAIBE, IBE), measuring and modelling equipment.

In the NANO UB-SOURCES project mainly the semiconductor laser team (TRT) will be involved.

In addition to R&D activities, TRT also provides scientific and technical advice, expertise or services for the company. TRT has participated in or led numerous research programs - both domestic or EU-funded, in the framework of ACTS, TELEMATICS, ESPRIT, BRITE-EURAM, TIDE, TMR, IST and NMP programmes:

• ESPRIT 263, RACE 1029, RACE 1033 OSCAR, RACE 1057 AQUA, NODELASE (BE-1945), ESPRIT 22497 NANOLASE, ACTS n° 30176 OSC, 2001 WTDM, 2005 MODAL, 2006 WELCOME, ACTS 053 MIDAS and 083 FRANS, IST-1999-10356 ULTRABRIGHT, IST BIGBAND project, IST IP project WWWBRIGHTEU

TRT is well equipped for this research with the following facilities and equipment:

• Growth of the structures is performed on an MOVPE system from AIXTRON. The model is an AIX 200/4 capable of growing all AlGaInAsP alloys on wafers up to a 4''.
• Routine characterisation equipment for: photoluminescence mapping & topography; simple & HR X-ray diffraction; electrochemical profiling; optical microscopy. For enhanced characterisation, SIMS, Auger, TEM, AFM and more.
• Standard clean-room facilities and semiconductor processing equipment (vacuum deposition, photolithography).
• ICP, RIE, IBE and CAIBE equipment for dry-etching
• Laser diode fabrication facilities.
• Characterisation benches for laser diodes including: probe testing, L(I) and V(I) measurements, far field pattern measurements, near field and optical spectra versus current and temperature, and life test equipment.
• Characterisations benches for the study of dynamic behaviour of optoelectronic devices: scattering parameters, noise, and linearity.

TRT provides the following state of the art related to the project:

• TRT has developed high quality FP and DFB Ridge laser diodes from 1.3 µm to 1.7 µm, based on MOCVD growth, which are used in external cavity lasers, gas sensor systems and optical microwave applications.
• TRT has a already worked on Superluminescent Diodes (SLDs) based on absorbing region, using bulk or QW material.
• TRT has demonstrated very high modulation bandwidth of more than 18 GHz on FP laser, 16 GHz on low noise DFB lasers and 30 GHz on Q-switch type DFB lasers.
• TRT has demonstrated within the IST project BIGBAND 1.55µm Qdots Ridge laser that shows high power, low noise and very good reliability (> 5000 hours ageing time).
• TRT has demonstrated within the IST project ULTRABRIGHT, small aperture tapered lasers emitting 1 W with a beam quality parameter M2 < 3.