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Spiral Microlasers Theorized

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Theoretically, disk-shaped lasers as small as a speck of dust could one day beam information through optical computers.

Typically, a perfect disk will spray light out, not as a beam, but rather in all directions. According to the Optical Society of America, adding a single notch to the disk edge provides a single outlet for laser light to stream out. 

To increase the speed of computers and telecommunications networks, researchers are looking to replace electrical currents with beams of light that would originate from small semiconductor lasers. However, shrinking lasers down to a few microns is not easy. The typical laser builds up its concentrated light beam by bouncing light rays, or modes, back and forth inside a reflective cavity. This linear design is not practical for microlasers.

Instead, scientists discovered in 1992 that they could get light amplification by having rays bounce around in a circle inside a small flat disk. These rays are called “whispering gallery modes” because they are similar to sound waves that travel across a room by skimming along a curved wall or ceiling.

The problem is that a disk is rotationally invariant, so there is no preferred direction for the amplified light to escape. Many microlaser designs end up shooting light out in multiple directions within the plane of the disk.

“The experimentalists have a holy grail of unidirectional emission in microlasers,” said Dr. Martina Hentschel of Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden, Germany.

In the past few years, some progress has been made with so-called spiral microlasers, which have a tiny notch that resembles the outer opening of a snail shell. Experiments have shown that light tends to propagate in a single direction from the notch. But other experiments have not been so lucky. To understand these contrasting results, Hentschel and a colleague, Tae-Yoon Kwon, performed a systematic study of spiral microlasers using a state-of-the-art theoretical description.

Physicists typically treat the light rays trapped inside a cavity as if they were billiard balls bouncing off walls, Hentschel explained. Some light rays escape, but those that just barely graze the inside surface are fully reflected back into the cavity (this being the same effect that channels light beams along optical fibers). Unfortunately, this simple “billiard” model is not sufficient for explaining spiral microlasers, Hentschel noted.

Hentschel and Kwon therefore chose a more sophisticated model based on the electromagnetic wave and laser equations. This framework allowed the researchers to control what part of the semiconductor material would be excited, or “pumped,” to a light-emitting state. Numerical calculations showed that the two whispering gallery modes inside a spiral cavity – one traveling clockwise, the other counterclockwise – are coupled together, but only one of these modes can escape out through the spiral’s notch.

To maximize this unidirectional emission, the researchers found that the notch size should be roughly twice the wavelength of the light. Moreover, the pumping must be confined to the rim of the spiral, specifically the outer 10 percent. These parameters could aid in the design of better-collimated microlasers.

“The optimal geometry and boundary pumping is very useful to know for an experimentalist,” Hentschel said.

The research appears in the Jan. 14, 2009, issue of the OSA journal, Optics Letters.

For more information, visit: www.osa.org 


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Published: January 2009
Glossary
photonics
The technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The science includes light emission, transmission, deflection, amplification and detection by optical components and instruments, lasers and other light sources, fiber optics, electro-optical instrumentation, related hardware and electronics, and sophisticated systems. The range of applications of photonics extends from energy generation to detection to communications and...
Basic ScienceCommunicationselectromagnetic wave and laser equationsgreen photonicslaser lightMartina HentschelMax Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex SystemsmicrolasersNews & Featuresoptical computersOptical Society of AmericaOSAphotonicssemiconductor lasersSpiral microlasersTae-Yoon Kwontiny disc-shaped laserswhispering gallery modesLasers

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