Cavity dumping using a microscopic Fano laser

Abstract

A microlaser with low energy consumption and high speed is crucial for on-chip photonic networks. Presently, the modulation of microlasers is based on modulating the gain of the laser, which implies a trade-off between the output peak power and modulation energy. Also, the temporal width of the output pulse is restricted by the carrier relaxation time. These limitations can be overcome by modulating, instead, the loss of the laser by the scheme of cavity dumping, which is ideal for intense and ultrashort pulse generation. However, the miniaturization of cavity-dumped lasers has been a long-standing challenge, and no microscopic cavity-dumped lasers have yet been realized. Here, we demonstrate an ultra-small cavity-dumped microscopic laser based on an optical Fano resonance, which generates optical pulses with peak power more than one order of magnitude higher than the corresponding conventional gain-modulated laser. This demonstration paves the way for realizing microscopic lasers for low-power chip-scale applications.