Continuous wave room temperature operation of the GaSb-based photonic crystal surface emitting diode lasers

We report on the continuous wave (CW) room temperature operation of epitaxially regrown monolithic GaSb-based photonic crystal surface emitting diode lasers (PCSEL) with λ ≈ 2 μm. The devices are based on laser heterostructure containing carrier stopper layer designed to inhibit electron leakage into buried photonic-crystal section. Atomic hydrogen cleaning of the nanopatterned surface followed by optimized epitaxial step resulted in highly uniform airpocket-retaining regrowth. The increase of the number of air-pockets in unit cells of the buried photonic crystal layer led to enhancement of the PCSEL output power and improvement of the far field pattern The PCSELs with buried high-index-contrast photonic crystal utilizing four air-pockets per unit cell generated 30 mW of continuous wave power from 200 μm diameter aperture.