Abstract-Subwavelength micropillar array terahertz lasers

Michael Krall, Martin Brandstetter, Christoph Deutsch, Hermann Detz, Aaron Maxwell Andrews, Werner Schrenk, Gottfried Strasser, and Karl Unterrainer  »View Author Affiliations

We report on micropillar-based terahertz lasers with active pillars that are much smaller than the emission wavelength. These micropillar array lasers correspond to scaled-down band-edge photonic crystal lasers forming an active photonic metamaterial. In contrast to photonic crystal lasers which use significantly larger pillar structures, lasing emission is not observed close to high-symmetry points in the photonic band diagram, but in the effective medium regime. We measure stimulated emission at 4 THz for micropillar array lasers with pillar diameters of 5 µm. Our results not only demonstrate the integration of active subwavelength optics in a terahertz laser, but are also an important step towards the realization of nanowire-based terahertz lasers.

© 2014 Optical Society of America