title: Multi-colour nanowire photonic crystal laser pixels.
abstract: Emerging applications such as solid-state lighting and display technologies require micro-scale vertically emitting lasers with controllable distinct lasing wavelengths and broad wavelength tunability arranged in desired geometrical patterns to form "super-pixels". Conventional edge-emitting lasers and current surface-emitting lasers that require abrupt changes in semiconductor bandgaps or cavity length are not a viable solution. Here, we successfully address these challenges by introducing a new paradigm that extends the laser tuning range additively by employing multiple monolithically grown gain sections each with a different emission centre wavelength. We demonstrate this using broad gain-bandwidth III-nitride multiple quantum well (MQW) heterostructures and a novel top-down nanowire photonic crystal nanofabrication. We obtain single-mode lasing in the blue-violet spectral region with a remarkable 60 nm of tuning (or 16% of the nominal centre wavelength) that is determined purely by the photonic crystal geometry. This approach can be extended to cover the entire visible spectrum.
authors.affiliation: 1] Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185, USA [2] Center for High Technology Materials, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87106, USA.
authors.forename: Jeremy B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Sheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: George T
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Qiming
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Benz
authors.forename: Daniel D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Koleske
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Huiwen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Luke
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lester
authors.forename: Ting S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Luk
authors.forename: Igal
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Brener
authors.forename: Ganapathi
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Subramania