Tailoring holes for improving the efficiency of single-mode photonic crystal waveguide lasers on InP substrate

The authors show that the use of triangular lattice photonic crystals (PhCs) with wide holes can significantly improve the lasing performances of PhC waveguides in the InP substrate approach. The study is carried out on W2-3 waveguides made in PhCs whose air filling factor is varied from similar to 25% to 55%. Intrinsically single-mode laser emissions with reduced threshold (/2) are obtained when the laser mode folds deeply into the gap. Concurrently, the slope of the light-light characteristic is increased by a factor of 14. The laser spectral behavior and threshold evolution are explained from three-dimensional finite difference time domain calculations. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.