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Photonic-crystal lasers with two-dimensionally arranged gain and loss sections for high-peak-power short-pulse operation

Nature Photonics volume 15, pages 311–318 (2021)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 19 March 2021

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Abstract

Realizing high-peak-power (tens to hundreds of watts or higher) short-pulse (tens of picoseconds or less) operation in semiconductor lasers is crucial for state-of-the-art applications including eye-safe high-resolution remote sensing and non-thermal ultrafine material processing. However, it has been challenging to introduce mechanisms that enable stable high-peak-power short-pulse operation in conventional semiconductor lasers. Here, we propose photonic crystal lasers that have two-dimensionally arranged gain and loss sections to enable high-peak-power short-pulse operation in the fundamental mode while suppressing lasing in higher-order modes to avoid laser instability. On the basis of this concept, we experimentally realize a high peak power of ~20 W and a short pulse width of ~35 ps with an injection current of only 3-4 A using a 400-μm-diameter device and theoretically predict that even higher peak power (>300 W) can be achieved in a 1-mm-diameter device. Our results will contribute to the realization of next-generation laser sources for the aforementioned applications.

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Fig. 1: Concept of PCSELs with 2D-arranged gain and loss sections.
Fig. 2: Design of the gain and loss sections.
Fig. 3: Experimental demonstrations using devices A and B.
Fig. 4: Optimization of PCSELs with 2D-arranged gain and loss sections.

Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available within this Article and its Supplementary Information, and are also available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

All associated code for 3D CWT simulations is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was mainly supported by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). The double-lattice photonic crystal structures were designed under the project of Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI) Cross ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) ‘Photonics and Quantum Technology for Society 5.0’ (Funding agency: QST). This work was also partially supported by a grant-in-aid for scientific research (grant number 20H02655) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). R.M. also acknowledges support from a grant-in-aid for JSPS Fellows (grant number 19J20134). We thank M. Yoshida and J. Gelleta for fruitful discussions.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Ryohei Morita, Takuya Inoue.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Science and Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Ryohei Morita, Kenji Ishizaki & Susumu Noda

  2. Photonics and Electronics Science and Engineering Center, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Takuya Inoue & Menaka De Zoysa

Authors
  1. Ryohei Morita
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  2. Takuya Inoue
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  3. Menaka De Zoysa
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  4. Kenji Ishizaki
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  5. Susumu Noda
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Contributions

S.N. supervised the entire project with T.I. R.M. designed the devices with T.I. R.M. fabricated the samples with M.D.Z. and K.I. R.M. performed the experiments and analysed the data with T.I. All authors discussed the results and wrote the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Takuya Inoue or Susumu Noda.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Photonics thanks Weng Chow, Herbert Winful and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Sections 1–9, Figs. 1–7 and Tables 1–3.

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Morita, R., Inoue, T., De Zoysa, M. et al. Photonic-crystal lasers with two-dimensionally arranged gain and loss sections for high-peak-power short-pulse operation. Nat. Photonics 15, 311–318 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00771-5

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