Step-index high-absorption Yb-doped large-mode-area fiber with Ge-doped raised cladding.

We report an all-solid large-mode-area (LMA) step-index fiber offering high absorption and low core numerical aperture (NA) by introducing a highly ytterbium-doped P:Al core and germanium-doped cladding. The fiber provides core absorption of ∼1200 dB/m at 976 nm with a low 0.07 core NA, due to the raised Ge cladding. Furthermore, matched profiles of P and Al across the core are successfully obtained with high concentration of Yb2O3 around 0.4 mol%. The fiber characteristics are routinely achievable by conventional modified chemical vapor deposition with a solution doping technique. A highly efficient laser with >100 W output power, 86% slope efficiency with respect to launched pump power, and a mean M2 of 1.34 has been demonstrated using the fabricated LMA step-index fiber. We also report 80% laser slope efficiency with 58 W output power (pump power limited) within only 0.5 m of the fiber when pumped by a wavelength-stabilized laser diode.

A high-efficiency regime for gas-phase terahertz lasers.

We present both an innovative theoretical model and an experimental validation of a molecular gas optically pumped far-infrared (OPFIR) laser at 0.25 THz that exhibits 10× greater efficiency (39% of the Manley-Rowe limit) and 1,000× smaller volume than comparable commercial lasers. Unlike previous OPFIR-laser models involving only a few energy levels that failed even qualitatively to match experiments at high pressures, our ab initio theory matches experiments quantitatively, within experimental uncertainties with no free parameters, by accurately capturing the interplay of millions of degrees of freedom in the laser. We show that previous OPFIR lasers were inefficient simply by being too large and that high powers favor high pressures and small cavities. We believe that these results will revive interest in OPFIR laser as a powerful and compact source of terahertz radiation.

Spawning rings of exceptional points out of Dirac cones.

The Dirac cone underlies many unique electronic properties of graphene and topological insulators, and its band structure--two conical bands touching at a single point--has also been realized for photons in waveguide arrays, atoms in optical lattices, and through accidental degeneracy. Deformation of the Dirac cone often reveals intriguing properties; an example is the quantum Hall effect, where a constant magnetic field breaks the Dirac cone into isolated Landau levels. A seemingly unrelated phenomenon is the exceptional point, also known as the parity-time symmetry breaking point, where two resonances coincide in both their positions and widths. Exceptional points lead to counter-intuitive phenomena such as loss-induced transparency, unidirectional transmission or reflection, and lasers with reversed pump dependence or single-mode operation. Dirac cones and exceptional points are connected: it was theoretically suggested that certain non-Hermitian perturbations can deform a Dirac cone and spawn a ring of exceptional points. Here we experimentally demonstrate such an 'exceptional ring' in a photonic crystal slab. Angle-resolved reflection measurements of the photonic crystal slab reveal that the peaks of reflectivity follow the conical band structure of a Dirac cone resulting from accidental degeneracy, whereas the complex eigenvalues of the system are deformed into a two-dimensional flat band enclosed by an exceptional ring. This deformation arises from the dissimilar radiation rates of dipole and quadrupole resonances, which play a role analogous to the loss and gain in parity-time symmetric systems. Our results indicate that the radiation existing in any open system can fundamentally alter its physical properties in ways previously expected only in the presence of material loss and gain.

Larger-area single-mode photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers enabled by an accidental Dirac point.

By altering the lattice geometry of the photonic crystal (PhC) surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs), we tune the regular lasing band edges of quadratic dispersions to form a single accidental Dirac point of linear dispersion at the Brillouin zone center. This not only increases the mode spacing by orders of magnitude but also eliminates the distributed in-plane feedback to enable single-mode PCSELs of substantially larger area and thus substantially higher output power. The advantages of using accidental Dirac cones are systematically evaluated through two-dimensional in-plane calculations and confirmed by three-dimensional simulations of PhC slab devices.

Fabricating centimeter-scale high quality factor two-dimensional periodic photonic crystal slabs.

We present a fabrication route for centimeter-scale two-dimensional defect-free photonic crystal slabs with quality factors bigger than 10,000 in the visible, together with a unique way to quantify their quality factors. We fabricate Si(3)N(4) photonic crystal slabs, and perform an angle-resolved reflection measurement. This measurement data is used to retrieve the quality factors of the slabs by fitting it to a model based on temporal coupled-mode theory. The macroscopic nature of the structure and the high quality factors of their resonances could open up new opportunities for realizing efficient macroscale optoelectronic devices such as sensors, lasers, and energy harvesting systems.

Enabling enhanced emission and low-threshold lasing of organic molecules using special Fano resonances of macroscopic photonic crystals.

The nature of light interaction with matter can be dramatically altered in optical cavities, often inducing nonclassical behavior. In solid-state systems, excitons need to be spatially incorporated within nanostructured cavities to achieve such behavior. Although fascinating phenomena have been observed with inorganic nanostructures, the incorporation of organic molecules into the typically inorganic cavity is more challenging. Here, we present a unique optofluidic platform comprising organic molecules in solution suspended on a photonic crystal surface, which supports macroscopic Fano resonances and allows strong and tunable interactions with the molecules anywhere along the surface. We develop a theoretical framework of this system and present a rigorous comparison with experimental measurements, showing dramatic spectral and angular enhancement of emission. We then demonstrate that these enhancement mechanisms enable lasing of only a 100-nm thin layer of diluted solution of organic molecules with substantially reduced threshold intensity, which has important implications for organic light-emitting devices and molecular sensing.

Observation of trapped light within the radiation continuum.

The ability to confine light is important both scientifically and technologically. Many light confinement methods exist, but they all achieve confinement with materials or systems that forbid outgoing waves. These systems can be implemented by metallic mirrors, by photonic band-gap materials, by highly disordered media (Anderson localization) and, for a subset of outgoing waves, by translational symmetry (total internal reflection) or by rotational or reflection symmetry. Exceptions to these examples exist only in theoretical proposals. Here we predict and show experimentally that light can be perfectly confined in a patterned dielectric slab, even though outgoing waves are allowed in the surrounding medium. Technically, this is an observation of an 'embedded eigenvalue'--namely, a bound state in a continuum of radiation modes--that is not due to symmetry incompatibility. Such a bound state can exist stably in a general class of geometries in which all of its radiation amplitudes vanish simultaneously as a result of destructive interference. This method to trap electromagnetic waves is also applicable to electronic and mechanical waves.

Observation and differentiation of unique high-Q optical resonances near zero wave vector in macroscopic photonic crystal slabs.

We demonstrate and distinguish experimentally the existence of a special type of Fano resonances at k≈0 in a macroscopic two-dimensional photonic crystal slab. We fabricate a square lattice array of holes in a silicon nitride layer and perform an angular resolved spectral analysis of the various Fano resonances. We elucidate their radiation behavior using temporal coupled-mode theory and symmetry considerations. The unique simplicity of this system whereby an ultralong lifetime delocalized electromagnetic field can exist above the surface and consequently easily interact with added matter, provides exciting new opportunities for the study of light and matter interaction.

Spatio-temporal theory of lasing action in optically-pumped rotationally excited molecular gases.

We investigate laser emission from optically-pumped rotationally excited molecular gases confined in a metallic cavity. To this end, we have developed a theoretical framework able to accurately describe, both in the spatial and temporal domains, the molecular collisional and diffusion processes characterizing the operation of this class of lasers. The effect on the main lasing features of the spatial variation of the electric field intensity and the ohmic losses associated to each cavity mode are also included in our analysis. Our simulations show that, for the exemplary case of methyl fluoride gas confined in a cylindrical copper cavity, the region of maximum population inversion is located near the cavity walls. Based on this fact, our calculations show that the lowest lasing threshold intensity corresponds to the cavity mode that, while maximizing the spatial overlap between the corresponding population inversion and electric-field intensity distributions, simultaneously minimizes the absorption losses occurring at the cavity walls. The dependence of the lasing threshold intensity on both the gas pressure and the cavity radius is also analyzed and compared with experiment. We find that as the cavity size is varied, the interplay between the overall gain of the system and the corresponding ohmic losses allows for the existence of an optimal cavity radius which minimizes the intensity threshold for a large range of gas pressures. The theoretical analysis presented in this work expands the current understanding of lasing action in optically-pumped far-infrared lasers and, thus, could contribute to the development of a new class of compact far-infrared and terahertz sources able to operate efficiently at room temperature.

Low-threshold lasing action in photonic crystal slabs enabled by Fano resonances.

We present a theoretical analysis of lasing action in photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs). The semiclassical laser equations for such structures are simulated with three different theoretical techniques: exact finite-difference time-domain calculations, an steady-state ab-initio laser theory and a semi-analytical coupled-mode formalism. Our simulations show that, for an exemplary four-level gain model, the excitation of dark Fano resonances featuring arbitrarily large quality factors can lead to a significant reduction of the lasing threshold of PCSELs with respect to conventional vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. Our calculations also suggest that at the onset of lasing action, most of the laser power generated by finite-size PCSELs is emitted in the photonic crystal plane rather than the vertical direction. In addition to their fundamental interest, these findings may affect further engineering of active devices based on photonic crystal slabs.