Optical amplifier based on guided polaritons in GaN and ZnO

Abstract

We propose a scheme of an optical amplifier based on GaN and ZnO waveguides operating in the regime of strong coupling between photonic modes and excitonic resonances. Amplification of the guided exciton-polaritons is obtained by stimulated scattering from the excitonic reservoir, which is found to be fast enough compared with the large velocity of the guided polariton modes. We analyze the device parameters at different temperatures. We find that an 80 $\mu$m-long amplifier can provide a gain of 10dB at room temperature, being supplied by 5 mA current in the $cw$ regime.