High power, single-mode operation from photonic-lattice semiconductor lasers with controllable lateral resonance

An active-photonic-crystal (APC) laser based on laterally resonant arrays of antiguides is proposed and demonstrated. Approximately 1-μm-wide, high-index APC sites are obtained by preferential etching and GaAs regrowth into a GaAs∕InGaP∕AlGaAs base structure. For 4-μm-wide, low-index APC sites ∼0.28-μm-thick regrowths provide resonant leaky-wave coupling across a 100-μm-wide aperture (i.e., across a 20-element APC structure) at 0.98μm vacuum wavelength. Large intermodal discrimination favoring in-phase mode operation to high drive levels is obtained at and around the in-phase mode resonance by introducing significant nonsaturatable losses in the high-index sites. The lateral-resonance condition is controlled during fabrication via small variations in the preferential-regrowths thickness on several pieces from the same wafer base. Virtually single-lobe, near-diffraction-limited beam operation is obtained up to 1.1W peak power at 11 times threshold. This also represents the demonstration of the lateral comp...