Researchers at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in Taejon have demonstrated room-temperature, continuous-wave lasing from a two-dimensional photonic crystal at 1.6 µm. The structure of the device, which the researchers described in the October 2000 issue of IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, may be applied to other photonic bandgap structures as well.

The researchers constructed the laser by wafer fusion and wet oxidation. They pumped the photonic crystal with a 980-nm InGaAs laser diode. Above a pump power of 9.2 mW, the device produced 1604-nm laser light in various transverse modes, depending on the position and spot size of the pump beam.