Multi-Color Nanowire Photonic Crystal Laser Pixels
ORAL
Abstract
Emerging applications such as solid-state lighting and display technologies require micro-scale vertically emitting lasers with controllable distinct lasing wavelengths and broad wavelength tunability arranged in desired geometrical patterns to form ``super-pixels.'' Conventional edge-emitting lasers and current surface-emitting lasers do not produce a viable solution as they require abrupt changes in semiconductor bandgaps or cavity length. Here, we successfully address these challenges by introducing a new paradigm that extends the laser tuning range additively by employing multiple monolithically grown gain sections each with a different emission center wavelength. Using broad gain-bandwidth III-nitride multiple quantum well (MQW) heterostructures and a novel top-down nanowire photonic crystal nanofabrication we obtain single-mode lasing in the blue-violet spectral region(Sci.Rep,\textbf{3},2982(2013)). This has a remarkable 60 nm of tuning (or 16{\%} of the nominal centre wavelength) that is determined purely by the photonic crystal geometry. This approach can be extended to cover the entire visible spectrum.
*Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.
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