Evolution of the onset of coherence in a family of photonic crystal nanolasers

Abstract

The authors report on the systematic variation of the onset of lasing in high-β photonic crystal nanolasers. A series of nanocavities has been designed to systematically approach the high-β devices by controlling the number of modes in the s-shell spectrum of InAs quantum dots at 4K. The lasing action is confirmed by the observation of coherent-state transition to Poissonian photon statistics. The quantitative analysis reveals the high β of 0.69, 0.44, and 0.19 for the nanocavities with one, two, and three modes, respectively. By mapping the observed lasing transitions to β factors, the authors demonstrate the interplay of β and lasing performance.