Photonic crystal lasers-ultimate nanolasers and broad-area coherent lasers

Photonic crystals in which the refractive index changes periodically provide an exciting tool for the manipulation of photons and have seen substantial progress in recent years. In this article, we discuss two topics regarding photonic crystal lasers: (i) ultimate nanolasers based on the photonic bandgap effect and high-Q nanocavities, and (ii) broad-area photonic crystal lasers based on the photonic bandedge effect. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America