Performance assessment of hybrid surface emitting lasers with lateral one-dimensional photonic-crystal mirrors

Abstract

The performance of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers can be enhanced, while simplifying the fabrication process, by adopting a hybrid design using a photonic-crystal (PhC) top mirror. In this paper, we analyze the performance of photonic-crystal surface emitting lasers (PCSELs) by varying the number of periods in the PhC mirror and estimating its reflectivity and lateral radiation losses. We consider three types of PhC mirrors: a simply periodic structure, a structure with a constant period but a variable filling factor (FF), and a structure with a constant FF but a variable period. We show that lateral losses can pose a serious limitation on the minimum size required to achieve an efficient PCSEL operation. We also show that our special structure can convert vertically emitted light into an in-plane light that propagates in the same plane as the PhC mirror creating the possibility of coupling vertically emitted light into optical waveguides. © 2010 Optical Society of America