Physics and Applications of High-β Micro- and Nanolasers

Hui Deng, Gian Luca Lippi, Jesper Mørk, Jan Wiersig, Stephan Reitzenstein*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReviewpeer-review

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Abstract

Micro- and nanolasers are emerging optoelectronic components with many properties still to be explored and understood. On the one hand, they make it possible to address fundamental physical questions in the border area between classical physics and quantum physics, on the other hand, they open up new application perspectives in many areas of photonics. This progress report provides an overview of the exciting developments from conventional semiconductor lasers toward nanoscale lasers, whose function relies on increased light–matter interaction in low-mode-volume resonators and unconventional gain concepts. The latest advances in the physical understanding of light emission from high-β lasers, in which a large part of the spontaneous emission is coupled into the laser mode, are highlighted. In the limit of β = 1, this leads to thresholdless lasing and it is shown that quantum optical characterization is required to fully explore the underlying emission processes. In addition, emerging nanolaser concepts based on Fano resonators, topological photonics, and 2D materials are presented. Open questions, future prospects, and application scenarios of high-β lasers in integrated photonics, quantum nanophotonics, and neuromorphic computing are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2100415
JournalAdvanced Optical Materials
Volume9
Issue number19
Number of pages24
ISSN2195-1071
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Oct 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge financial support by the German Research Foundation via projects Re2974/20‐1, Re2974/21‐1, Re2974/29‐1, WI1986/11‐1, by the Volkswagen Foundation via projects NeuroQNet1 and NeuroQNet2, and by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework ERC Grant Agreement No. 615613 and No. 834410. Funding and support has also been provided by the Région PACA and Investments for the Future programme under the Université Côte d'Azur UCA‐JEDI project managed by the ANR (ANR‐15‐IDEX‐01) as well as the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF147). The authors also acknowledge support by the United States Army Research Office Award W911NF‐17‐1‐0312, Air Force Office of Scientific Research Award FA2386‐18‐1‐4086, and the Humboldt Foundation's Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award. The authors would like to thank H. Schomerus for discussions.

Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge financial support by the German Research Foundation via projects Re2974/20-1, Re2974/21-1, Re2974/29-1, WI1986/11-1, by the Volkswagen Foundation via projects NeuroQNet1 and NeuroQNet2, and by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework ERC Grant Agreement No. 615613 and No. 834410. Funding and support has also been provided by the R?gion PACA and Investments for the Future programme under the Universit? C?te d'Azur UCA-JEDI project managed by the ANR (ANR-15-IDEX-01) as well as the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF147). The authors also acknowledge support by the United States Army Research Office Award W911NF-17-1-0312, Air Force Office of Scientific Research Award FA2386-18-1-4086, and the Humboldt Foundation's Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award. The authors would like to thank H. Schomerus for?discussions. Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Advanced Optical Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH

Keywords

  • Fano lasers
  • High-β lasers
  • Microlasers
  • Nanolasers
  • Neuromorphic computing
  • Quantum nanophotonics
  • Thresholdless lasing

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