The ongoing quest for semiconductor lasers with low threshold current has led to the development of new materials (e.g., quantum wires and dots) and new optical resonators (e.g., microdisks and photonic bandgap crystals). In a novel approach to "thresholdless" lasers, we have developed a new growth technique for self-assembled deep-centers in the technologically important semiconductor gallium-arsenide. We recently demonstrated the first gallium-arsenide deep-center laser. These lasers, which intentionally utilize gallium-arsenide deep-center transitions, exhibited a threshold of less than 2A/cm2 with electrical injection in continuous-wave mode at room temperature at the important 1.54um fiber-optic wavelength. We explain the physics of GaAs deep-center lasers.

  At Yale University, Dr. Janet Pan has been a winner of the NSF Career, ONR Young Investigator, and Sheffield Teaching Awards. Dr. Pan has been an Invited Speaker at the March Meeting of the APS, the International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors, and Photonics West. Dr. Pan received all her degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at MIT, she won the Hertz, NSF, and Rockwell International Graduate Student Fellowships. She was also a winner of the Associate of MIT Alumnae Highest Academic Achievement Award for best female undergraduate student.