Two-dimensional AlGaInP/GaInP photonic crystal membrane lasers operating in the visible regime at room temperature

The authors report on the fabrication and characterization of visible two-dimensional photonic crystal (PhC) band-edge lasers with AlGaInP/GaInP multiple-quantum-well active layers. High-quality PhC air-bridge membranes are produced by optimizing the inductively coupled plasma etching process for AlGaInP materials. Room-temperature lasing operation at the wavelengths ranging from 630 to 690 nm is obtained by tuning the PhC lattice parameters. The lasing action originates from high-symmetry band-edge modes, which is verified by three-dimensional finite difference time domain computation.