Design of very-large area photonic crystal surface emitting lasers with an all-semiconductor photonic crystal

We report on the design of a photonic crystal surface emitting laser (PCSEL) with an all-semiconductor (InGaP/GaAs) photonic crystal suitable for very-large-area emission and high-power operation. Using coupled-wave theory for PCSELs we model infinite- and finite-size cavity PCSELs and show that a photonic crystal unit cell with square lattice periodicity and a rotated and stretched triangular feature is suitable for the realization of PCSELs with very large areas (1 mm< L < 3 mm for a square cavity of size L × L ) while maintaining high mode discrimination between the fundamental laser mode and higher order cavity modes as well as high external efficiency. This was achieved by exploiting a single-lattice photonic crystal unit cell design that minimizes one-dimensional coupling in the photonic crystal, providing a promising alternative to double-lattice PCSELs.