Influence of mode symmetry on quality factors of degenerate states in microlasers with an equilateral triangle resonator

Abstract

Modes in equilateral triangle resonator (ETR) are analyzed and classified according to the irreducible representations of the point group C_3v. Both the analytical method based on the far field emission and the numerical method by FDTD technique are used to calculate the quality factors (Q-factors) of the doubly degenerate states in ETR. Results obtained from the two methods are in reasonable agreement. Considering the different symmetry properties of the doubly degenerate eigenstates, we also discuss the ETR joined with an output waveguide at one of the vertices by FDTD technique and the Pade approximation. The variation of Q-factors versus width of output waveguide is analyzed. The numerical results show that doubly degenerate eigenstates of TM_0.36 and TM_0.38 whose wavelengths are around 1.5μm in the resonator with side-length of 5μm have the Q-factors larger than 1000 when the width of the output waveguide is smaller than 0.4μm. When the width of the output waveguide is set to 0.3μm, the symmetrical states that are more efficiently coupled to output waveguide have Q-factors about 8000, which are over 3 times larger than those of asymmetric state.