Compressible 1D photonic crystal nanolasers with wide wavelength tuning

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a tunable photonic crystal nanolaser consisting of 1D periodic nanorods wrapped in deformable polydimethylsiloxane. In addition to low-threshold and long-term lasing stability, the nanolaser also displays reproducible and reliable wavelength tuning with a large tunability of 7.7 nm under 1% compression. By further associating with stretching, a very wide wavelength-tunable range of 155 nm that almost spans the entire S+C+L telecommunication bands is successfully demonstrated with a single nanolaser device.