Circularly Polarized Laser Emission from an Electrically Pumped Chiral Microcavity

Physical Review Applied. 2022. Vol. 17. P. 1–6.

Kulakovskii V., Maksimov A. A., Filatov E. V., Tartakovskii I. I., Tikhodeev S. G., Schneider C., Hoefling S.

Engineering the chirality of optical microcavities is a central concept of modern photonics to gain full
control the polarization of the confined electromagnetic mode. Here, we demonstrate a compact source of
coherent radiation based on an electrically driven, chiral semiconductor microcavity. The device is composed
of an AlAs/(Al,Ga)As microcavity containing multiple GaAs quantum wells in the active region
and a chiral photonic crystal slab etched in the upper distributed Bragg reflector. The structure promotes
laser oscillation under electrical current injection in the near-infrared spectral range (ω  1.565 eV)
and degrees of circular polarization exceeding 90%. The sense of circular polarization is controlled by
the handedness of the chiral photonic crystal slab and changes to the opposite one in a mirror-symmetrical
structure. Our results represent an important step towards the practical implementation of compact sources
of circularly polarized light.

Keywords: инжекционный лазер, микрорезонатор, VERTICAL-CAVITY SURFACE-EMITTING LASER, metasurfaces, метаповерхности, semiconductor microcavity