Directional emission of stadium-shaped microlasers

Abstract

The far-field emission of two-dimensional stadium-shaped dielectric cavities is investigated. Microlasers with such shape present a highly directional emission. We provide experimental evidence of the dependence of the emission directionality on the shape of the stadium, in good agreement with ray numerical simulations. We develop an analytical geometrical optics model which permits to account for the main observed features. Wave numerical calculations confirm the results.