Carrier and photon analyses of photonic microlasers by two-dimensional rate equations

In photonic crystal (PC) microlasers with point defect cavities, effective carriers are reduced by the leakage to outside of the defect, surface recombination, spatial carrier hole burning, and Auger recombination. To estimate these effects, we calculated carrier and photon behavior by solving two-dimensional rate equations in space and time domains. The result clearly shows these effects and their dependence on cavity structure, pump area, and so on. Compared with that for the microdisk laser, higher threshold values are estimated for PC microlasers. However, a comparably low threshold density and a high efficiency are expected for the quasi-periodic PC microlaser, because the hole burning by the whispering gallery mode of this cavity suppresses the carrier leakage.