Deformed Honeycomb Lattices of InGaAs Nanowires Grown on Silicon-on-Insulator for Photonic Crystal Surface-Emitting Lasers

Photonic crystals can be used to achieve high-performance surface-emitting lasers and enable novel photonic topological insulator devices. In this work, a GaAs/InGaAs heterojunction nanowire platform by selective area metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy for such applications is demonstrated. The nanowires are arranged into deformed honeycomb lattices on silicon-on-insulator substrate to exploit the quadrupolar photonic band-edge mode. Core-shell and axial heterostructures are formed with their crystalline properties studied by scanning transmission electron microscopy. Room-temperature, single mode lasing from both stretched and compressed honeycomb lattices within the telecom-O band, with lasing threshold as low as 1.25 mu J cm(-2) is demonstrated. The potential of using InGaAs nanowire-based honeycomb lattices for small-divergence surface-emitting lasers and topological edge mode lasers is investigated. Finite-difference time-domain far field simulations suggest a sub-10 degrees beam divergence can be achieved thanks to the out-of-plane diffraction.

Automated summary

In this work, a GaAs/InGaAs heterojunction nanowire platform is demonstrated for high-performance surface-emitting lasers and novel photonic topological insulator devices. The nanowires are arranged into deformed honeycomb lattices on a silicon-on-insulator substrate. The study shows the potential of using InGaAs nanowire-based honeycomb lattices for small-divergence surface-emitting lasers and topological edge mode lasers.