State-of-the-Art Photonic Nanostructure Devices

Semiconductor photonic nanostructures, i.e. photonic crystals (PCs) and high index contrast structures (HICs), have become worldwide topics in this decade. They strongly control light emission and propagation, and so allows novel phenomena and device applications. PCs are artificial muIt i-dimensional periodic structures whose period is of the order optical wavelength. Through active studies in these 20 years, their fundamental theory and fabrication techniques have been established, and now they are widely used as tools in other topics of photonics physics and optoelectronics, e.g. nanolaser and cavity QED, efficient light extraction in LEDs, high-power single mode VCSELs, slow light and optical buffering, nonlinear photonic switching, negative refractive optics. HICs have simpler structures and optical characteristics. They are particularly attracting attention in the field of Si photonics. This presentation reviews some of our research activities on these topics.