Surface-normal emission of a high-Q resonator using a subwavelength high-contrast grating

Abstract

We report a novel high-quality (Q) factor optical resonator using a subwavelength high-contrast grating (HCG) with in-plane resonance and surface-normal emission. We show that the in-plane resonance is manifested is by a sharp, asymmetric lineshape in the surface-normal reflectivity spectrum. The simulated Q factor of the resonator is shown to be as high as 500,000. A HCG-resonator was fabricated with an InGaAs quantum well active region sandwiched in-between AlGaAs layers and a Q factor of >14,000 was inferred from the photoluminescence linewidth of 0.07 nm, which is currently limited by instrumentation. The novel HCG resonator design will serve as a potential platform for many devices including surface emitting lasers, optical filters, and biological or chemical sensors.