Polarized vertical beaming of an engineered hexapole mode laser

We demonstrate vertical beaming of linearly-polarized light from the hexapole mode of an engineered single-cell photonic crystal cavity by employing the solid angle scanning system. The vertical emission that is forbidden by the inner symmetry of the hexapole mode is made possible by perturbing its symmetry. Experimentally 56% of photons are funneled within a divergence angle of +/- 30 degrees. Measured polarization-resolved far-field profiles of the engineered hexapole mode agree well with those of the predictions of finite difference time domain methods. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America