Short cavity InP-lasers with 2D photonic crystal mirrors

Compact, high performance light sources are a key building block for future use in highly integrated photonic circuits. We have fabricated inplane emitting InP-based microlasers with cavity lengths of 600-100 μm. The required high reflectivity mirrors consist of a 2D ΓM-oriented triangular photonic crystal (PC) of air rods with lattice constants in the range 275-350 nm. The lasers with the optimum PC period operate CW at room temperature with a threshold current Of I _th=29 mA and output power up to 4 mW for the shortest devices. The optimum performance with I_th=24 mA and output power exceeding 12 mW is achieved for 200 μm long devices. This dependence of laser characteristics on cavity length and PC properties is discussed. A lower limit for the reflectivity of the PC mirror is extracted from the laser performance data. In addition, an analysis of the high frequency dynamic properties relative intensity noise (RIN) and modulation bandwidth is presented