Low-threshold photonic crystal laser

We have fabricated photonic crystal nanocavity lasers, based on a high-quality factor design that incorporates fractional edge dislocations. Lasers with InGaAsP quantum well active material emitting at 1550 nm were optically pumped with 10 ns pulses, and lased at threshold pumping powers below 220 muW, the lowest reported for quantum-well based photonic crystal lasers, to our knowledge. Polarization characteristics and lithographic tuning properties were found to be in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.