Coherent power scaling in photonic crystal surface emitting laser arrays

Abstract

A key benefit of photonic crystal surface emitting lasers (PCSELs) is the ability to increase output power through scaling the emission area while maintaining high quality single mode emission, allowing them to close the brightness gap which exists between semiconductor lasers and gas and fiber lasers. However, there are practical limits to the size, and hence power, of an individual PCSEL device, and there are trade-offs between single-mode stability and parasitic in-plane losses with increasing device size. In this paper, we discuss 2D coherent arrays as an approach to area and coherent power scaling of PCSELs. We demonstrate in two and three element PCSEL arrays an increase in the differential efficiency of the system due to a reduction in in-plane loss.