The authors have successfully fabricated in-plane emitting InP-based microlasers with cavity lengths of 600-100 mum. The required high reflective mirrors consist of a 2D GammaM-oriented triangular photonic crystal of air rods with a lattice constant of. 350nm. The lasers operate CW at room temperature with a threshold current of 29mA and output power up to 4mW for the shortest devices.

Compact, high performance light sources are a key building block for future use in highly integrated photonic circuits. We have fabricated inplane emitting InP-based microlasers with cavity lengths of 600-100 mum. The required high reflectivity mirrors consist of a 2D GammaM-oriented triangular photonic crystal (PC) of air rods with lattice constants in the range 275350 nm. The lasers with the optimum PC period operate CW at room temperature with a threshold current Of I-th = 29 mA and output power up to 4 mW for the shortest devices. The optimum performance with I-th = 24 mA and output power exceeding 12 mW is achieved for 200 mum long devices. This dependence of laser characteristics on cavity length and PC properties is discussed. A lower limit for the reflectivity of the PC miror is extracted from the laser performance data. In addition, an analysis of the high frequency dynamic properties relative intensity noise (RIN) and modulation bandwidth is presented.

We have developed a fabrication scheme for two-dimensional (2D) triangular photonic crystals (PCs) on InP-based material systems involving high resolution electron beam lithography, pattern transfer to a SiO2 etch mask, and a Cl2/Ar electron cyclotron resonance reactive ion etch step yielding PCs with periods of a=300–450 nm and air fill factors of f=18%–63%. These PCs are employed as high reflectivity mirrors for 1.5 μm short cavity lasers, which are key components in future highly integrated PC based photonic circuits. We have fabricated lasers with 2 PC mirrors and cavity lengths down to 100 μm. Threshold currents as low as 7.6 mA were achieved for the shortest lasers with 2 PC mirrors. The short laser cavity results in a large Fabry–Pérot mode spacing and mode competition leads to single mode lasing over a reasonably large current range up to 4.5× threshold. Lasers with one PC back mirror and a cleaved output facet show a higher threshold current of 13 mA and a maximum output power of more than 4 mW. The variation of laser performance with different cavity lengths is presented and discussed.

We report the fabrication of short-cavity lasers with highly reflective two-dimensional photonic crystal mirrors on an InGaAsP/InP laser structure emitting at 1.57 μm. An intracavity photonic crystal mirror creates two coupled cavities, which provide additional longitudinal mode selection for stable single-mode operation with side-mode suppression ratios exceeding 35 dB. The shortest lasers with l=100 μm overall length have a threshold current of 13 mA and provide more than 4 mW power under continuous wave operation. Longer devices with l=200 μm deliver up to 9 mW. A maximum modulation bandwidth of 7.9 GHz was determined by relative intensity noise measurements.