Susumu Noda Vol. 27, No. 11 / November 2010 / J. Opt. Soc. Am.

B B1

Photonic crystal lasers—ultimate nanolasers

and broad-area coherent lasers [Invited]

Susumu Noda
Department of Electronic Science and Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto 615-8510, Japan
(snoda@kuee.kyoto-u.ac.jp)

Received July 2, 2010; accepted July 23, 2010;

posted August 9, 2010 (Doc. ID 131051); published October 1, 2010
Photonic crystals in which the refractive index changes periodically provide an exciting tool for the manipu-
lation of photons and have seen substantial progress in recent years. In this article, we discuss two topics re-
garding photonic crystal lasers: (i) ultimate nanolasers based on the photonic bandgap effect and high-Q nano-
cavities, and (ii) broad-area photonic crystal lasers based on the photonic bandedge effect. © 2010 Optical
Society of America
OCIS codes: 230.5298, 250.7270, 350.4238.

1. INTRODUCTION 2. ULTIMATE NANOLASERS

Photonic crystals are optical nanostructures with refrac-
tive indices that vary periodically, and are characterized
by a photonic bandgap in terms of the energy of photons.
Light with wavelengths that lie in the photonic bandgap
cannot exist in the crystal, giving rise to completely dif-
ferent optical phenomena than in free space. These char-
acteristics enable various interesting methods of optical
control including materials from which light emission is
inhibited [1–5], trapping of photons at a microscopic
point-defect (known as a photonic nanocavity) [6–9], real-
ization of nanolasers [10–12], and key elements for quan-
tum information processing [13–15]. It is also expected
that photonic crystals can be designed to allow the dy-
namic control of optical nanocavities [16] and the control
of the dispersion characteristics of waveguides [17,18],
which may enable the propagation of light to be slowed
down to the limit and ultimately halted. The attractive
potential of photonic crystals includes use of the standing
wave state at the bandedge, where the group velocity be-
comes zero, in order to realize broad-area coherent laser
operation [19–23]. These characteristics ensure that pho-
tonic crystals are currently attracting much attention.
The first half of this paper introduces research activi-
ties that are geared toward realizing the ultimate nano-
laser [12] using the photonic bandgap effect. Important
aspects of this effort are in the achievement of spontane-
ous emission suppression and strong optical confinement
using a photonic nanocavity. During the process for this
goal, interesting phenomena that can be classified as
quantum anti-Zeno effects [24] have been observed [14].
The second half of the paper focuses on the current
state of research in the field of broad-area coherent pho-
tonic crystal lasers using the bandedge effect [19,20],
which occupies a position opposite to that of nanolasers
discussed above. The main characteristics of these lasers
will be discussed, including their high-power operation,
the generation of tailored beam patterns, and surface-
emitting laser operation in the blue–violet region.
Semiconductor lasers typically suffer from unnecessary
spontaneous emission before the laser oscillation starts.
This degrades the laser characteristics, for example giv-
ing rise to an increased lasing threshold and noise. There-
fore, the possibility of realizing a semiconductor laser in
which the threshold is ultimately minimized (the so-
called thresholdless laser) by eliminating spontaneous
emission as far as possible is attracting attention as one
type of the ultimate semiconductor laser. The develop-
ment of photonic crystal nanocavities and their integra-
tion with quantum dots are accelerating research activi-
ties that aim to achieve such ultimate lasers. In the
following subsection we discuss the current status of this
area of nanolaser research.
A. Towards Realizing Ultimate Nanolasers
The spontaneous emission from a semiconductor laser oc-
curs due to interactions between the resonant and leak-
age modes in the laser cavity with the gain medium.
Among these many optical modes, one of the resonant
modes undergoes a transition to a laser oscillation,
whereas the other modes generate unnecessary spontane-
ous emission that degrades the laser characteristics. The
following three requirements should thus be addressed in
order to minimize spontaneous emission and to realize a
thresholdless laser:
(i) elimination, as far as possible, of unnecessary opti-
cal modes from the region of the photonic crystal where
lasing occurs;
(ii) utilization of a single-cavity mode with a suffi-
ciently high Q factor and small loss as a laser mode, the
modal volume of which should also be as small as possible
in order to maximize the interaction with the gain me-
dium;
(iii) coupling of the gain medium only with the single
optical mode described in (ii).

0740-3224/10/1100B1-8/$15.00 © 2010 Optical Society of America

B2 J. Opt. Soc. Am. B / Vol. 27, No. 11 / November 2010
Regarding requirement (i), where modes other than the
lasing mode eventually generate unnecessary spontane-
ous emission, progress in photonic crystal research is
making it possible to minimize these unnecessary modes.
It has been demonstrated both theoretically and experi-
mentally that the 2D photonic crystal slab structure
shown in Fig. 1, which enables pseudo-3D optical control,
eliminates optical modes on the surface [4,5,25], leading
to the suppression of 94% of the unnecessary spontaneous
emission [26].
Requirement (ii) can be addressed by introducing a
point defect, which can be envisaged as a disturbance in
the periodic structure, in the middle of the 2D photonic
crystal slab; this leads to the formation of a microscopic
single photonic mode (photonic nanocavity) with a modal
volume V. If the Q factor of this mode is sufficiently large,
its associated emission rate can be increased due to the
so-called Purcell effect, which enhances the emission rate
by a factor of Q / V. This increases the average number of
photons in the cavity at the same excitation level, thereby
reducing the lasing threshold (on the condition that the
average number of photons exceeds one). The large Q / V
also contributes to making the lasing operation appear
thresholdless, because the emission rate for the nanocav-
ity mode becomes much larger than the emission rate as-
sociated with the spontaneous emission that cannot be
completely eliminated by photonic crystal design consid-
erations, as described above. Therefore, it is essential
to increase the Q factor of the optical nanocavity.
Dramatic progress in this area has recently been
achieved; a Q factor of 50,000 has been demonstrated by
shifting the air holes at the edges of the cavity (see Fig. 2)
[7]. Furthermore, a Q factor in excess of 2 ⫻ 106 [5,27] has
recently been attained by introducing a photonic hetero-
structure [8,9].
Focusing now on requirement (iii), the most suitable
gain medium that can be introduced into an optical nano-
cavity is the quantum dot [28,29]. Quantum dots enable
3D carrier confinement, avoiding the effects of non-
radiative centers that are inevitably introduced in the
Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of 2D photonic crystal slab struc-
ture. The 2D photonic bandgap effect occurring in the plane of a
slab with a periodic structure inhibits the existence of slab modes
that are confined in the slab. A large difference in refractive in-
dex at the air/semiconductor interface strongly confines light in
the up/down direction, which inhibits most of the slab modes and
allows the existence of only a few leakage modes. As a result,
more than 94% of spontaneous emission is suppressed.
Susumu Noda
Fig. 2. Conceptual method for increasing the Q factor of a pho-
tonic crystal optical nanocavity. A slight shift of the lattice points
at the ends of a point defect that is formed by the removal of
three linearly adjacent lattice points in a 2D, circular-hole,
triangular-lattice photonic crystal greatly increases the Q factor.
fabrication of photonic crystals and thereby restricting
the coupling of the gain medium to the lasing mode. Fur-
thermore, because quantum dots become transparent
above a very weak level of excitation, only limited lower-
ing of the cavity Q factor occurs due to optical absorption
by the quantum dots before lasing, which would other-
wise inhibit the enhanced emission effect described above.
Quantum dots are thus expected to be effective in lower-
ing the threshold of the laser. However, quantum dots
with the best characteristics are currently fabricated us-
ing a self-formation method, which takes advantage of
lattice mismatch introduced during crystal growth [29]
and inevitably yields dots with random geometries and
exciton resonance wavelengths. A quantum dot is ex-
pected to contribute to thresholdless operation only if the
exciton resonance wavelength is the same as that of the
resonant wavelength of the nanocavity, and when the po-
sition is located where the electric field of the nanocavity
is strongest. When these conditions are not met, there is a
concern that a quantum dot may make thresholdless op-
eration even more difficult by inhibiting the Purcell effect.
Although recent developments in fabrication technologies
are beginning to realize systems in which a single quan-
tum dot and photonic nanocavity are aligned under the
condition of low quantum dot density [30], the Purcell ef-
fect is still inhibited when the wavelengths of the quan-
tum dot and the nanocavity do not match. Precise tuning
between the two thus seems essential. However, a phe-
nomenon that is contrary to intuition has very recently
been reported, wherein an optical nanocavity mode gen-
erates strong emission despite large detuning between
the resonant mode of the nanocavity and the exciton reso-
nance wavelength of the quantum dot [11,14]. The expla-
nation of this new emission mechanism is generating de-
bate and will be discussed in the following subsection
[24,31–33]. This mechanism significantly relaxes the re-
quirement for precise wavelength tuning and is accelerat-
ing progress toward the realization of an ultimate nano-
laser [11,34].
B. Quantum Anti-Zeno Effect in a Nanocavity
and Quantum Dot System
Figure 3 schematically illustrates the emission mecha-
nism for a system comprised of a photonic nanocavity and
Susumu Noda
Fig. 3. Analytical model for integrating a 2D photonic crystal
optical nanocavity and a quantum dot.
quantum dot. In this model, the optical nanocavity and
the two-level electron system interact with one another,
eventually dissipating into free space. Two dissipation
processes are considered in this model: a process where
the two-level electron system directly relaxes, emitting
photons to free space, and a process where photons are
first emitted to the nanocavity before relaxation to free
space. An emission spectrum can be calculated by evalu-
ating the time evolution of the entire system using the
master equation and assuming an initial state where only
the two-level electron system is excited. We carried out
this calculation as a function of the energy difference be-
tween the two-level electron system and the nanocavity,
the results of which are presented in Fig. 4(a). An emis-
sion peak is observed at the cavity energy when the ener-
gies of the electron system and photonic nanocavity
Fig. 4. Emission spectra of integrated 2D photonic crystal opti-
cal nanocavity and quantum dot systems. QD indicates emission
peaks from the quantum dots, and Cav indicates emission peaks
from the nanocavity. Spectra are shown for (a) no pure phase re-
laxation, (b) pure phase relaxation rate= 33 ␮eV, and 共c兲 94 ␮eV.
Vol. 27, No. 11 / November 2010 / J. Opt. Soc. Am. B B3
match. However, no emission from the optical nanocavity
occurs when the energies do not match, in accordance
with the intuition expressed in Subsection 2.A. However,
because in reality the quantum dots are buried in the
semiconductor matrix, a phase disturbance process is
caused by factors such as surrounding electron systems
and phonons that are not associated with the quantum
dots themselves. This process is a pure phase relaxation,
and when introduced in the model, it becomes apparent
that strong emission can be generated from the nanocav-
ity even when there is detuning in the energies (Fig. 4(b)).
Here, the pure phase relaxation process refers to a relax-
ation only in the non-diagonal terms of the so-called den-
sity matrix, which corresponds to a disturbance process
where only the phases of dipoles in the electron system in-
teract with the surrounding environment. When the de-
gree of pure phase relaxation is increased, as shown in
Fig. 4(c), emission from the nanocavity becomes ex-
tremely strong. This result strongly suggests that pure
phase relaxation provides the dominant contribution to
emission from the cavity when the cavity and electron
system energies do not match. This is an example of a
general physical phenomenon known as the anti-Zeno ef-
fect, which is opposite to the well-known quantum Zeno
effect. In the quantum Zeno effect, observation or deco-
herence inhibits changes of state, whereas in the anti-
Zeno effect, observation or decoherence promotes changes
of state. A possible explanation specific to this system is
that the energy of the electron system is slightly broad-
ened by the effects of either pure phase relaxation or de-
coherence; the trailing edge of the electron system energy
distribution then coincides with the energy of the cavity
mode, enabling emission from cavities whose energies are
detuned from that of the electron system. However, the
calculation results in Figs. 4(b) and 4(c) suggest that the
broadening of the electron system energy is extremely
small, and it does not appear that the trailing edge of the
energy distribution overlaps with the energy of the cavity.
Emission from the cavity is thus counter-intuitive, which
led us to investigate further why strong emission is pos-
sible for cavities whose energies are far from that of the
electron system. It turns out that this phenomenon is spe-
cific to a system comprising an optical nanocavity and
quantum dots. This finding is based on the following ef-
fects: (a) the photonic bandgap effect significantly inhibits
emission relaxation processes in which the electron sys-
tem couples into leakage modes; (b) the Purcell effect is
strongly suppressed due to the detuning effect. Thus the
path by which the electron system forces the nanocavity
to oscillate in order to relax to free space is strongly sup-
pressed. So even when the energies of the electron system
and cavity are detuned, energy is transferred through the
trailing edge of the broadening of the cavity energy and
then emitted to free space. This represents the major re-
laxation process and as a result, strong emission is ob-
served at the cavity energy. This also implies that the con-
ditions regarding wavelength detuning are significantly
relaxed when quantum dots are used as the gain medium
in an optical nanocavity, making the realization of a
thresholdless laser more viable. Further discussion of this
issue can be found in [24,31]. These results provide a di-
rection for future research into coupled quantum dot and
B4 J. Opt. Soc. Am. B / Vol. 27, No. 11 / November 2010
nanocavity systems and are particularly important for
the eventual realization of devices such as nanolasers.
3. BROAD-AREA COHERENT LASERS
Whereas interactions between photons and electrons in
nanocavities were discussed in the previous section, we
now focus on the opposite situation: extremely large-area
coherent laser oscillation.
It is well known that semiconductor distributed feed-
back lasers possess a 1D lattice, and that the forward-
propagating wave undergoes Bragg reflection due to this
grating, being diffracted to the opposite direction. The re-
sulting forward- and backward-propagating waves couple
with each other to generate a standing wave, forming a
cavity. This is equivalent to the fact that in a 1D photonic
crystal the cavity loss is smallest at the bandedges, which
are at both ends of the photonic bandgap, giving rise to a
state that causes oscillation. When this idea is extended
to photonic crystals with 2D gratings, one can make use of
the coupling of optical waves due to Bragg reflection
within the 2D plane in order to form a standing wave
state that covers the entire surface of the plane [19]. As a
result, it becomes possible to obtain an oscillation mode
with an electromagnetic field distribution that is perfectly
defined at each grating point in the 2D crystal. The opti-
cal output can be diffracted in the direction perpendicular
to the plane of the crystal, thus realizing a surface-
emitting characteristic. Two-dimensional photonic crys-
tals hence enable the construction of surface-emitting la-
sers in which not only the longitudinal mode of lasing is
defined, but also the beam pattern, usually referred to as
the transverse mode. Furthermore, it becomes possible to
realize a novel laser that oscillates in a single longitudi-
nal and transverse mode, no matter how large the surface
area is, which goes quite beyond a conventional concept in
the field of laser research.
The first semiconductor laser to be based on this prin-
ciple was realized in 1999 [19]. Since then, in addition to
the demonstration of room-temperature continuous lasing
[35], it has been shown that 2D photonic crystals can gen-
erate beams with controlled polarization [21] and pat-
terns [22]; for example, a doughnut-shaped beam can be
formed, which is expected to be focusable to sizes smaller
than the wavelength [36]. Another notable recent devel-
opment using this principle is the realization of a current-
injection-type blue–violet region surface-emitting laser
[17]. We discuss the current state of the art in the follow-
ing subsections.
A. Broad-Area Coherent Operation
Figure 5 shows an example of a laser based on the 2D
photonic crystal bandedge effect. This laser consists of
two wafers, A and B; wafer A includes an active layer for
the injection of electrons and holes with a photonic crystal
as the upper-most layer. The integration of wafers A and
B results in the photonic crystal being sandwiched to com-
plete the device. As shown in the inset of Fig. 5, this pho-
tonic crystal has a square lattice structure and is de-
signed such that the periodicity in the ⌫-X direction
matches the emission wavelength in the active layer. In
this design, light propagating in a certain ⌫ − X direction
Susumu Noda
Fig. 5. Schematic picture of a broad-area coherent operation
photonic crystal laser based on the bandedge effect.
is Bragg diffracted to the opposite 共−180° 兲 direction, as
well as to the −90° and 90° directions; the four equivalent
light waves propagating in the ⌫ − X direction then couple
to form a 2D cavity. Figure 6(a) shows the photonic band
structure of this cavity. The lasing mode occurs at the
bandedges indicated by the small dots (in the center) at
the ⌫-points of the four bands A, B, C and D. Detailed
analysis indicates that the bandedge in band A yields the
highest Q factor, and that lasing oscillation most readily
occurs there [37,38].
Figure 6(b) shows the measured band structure of a
fabricated device based on the semiconductor GaAs,
which is in good agreement with the calculated band
structure in Fig. 6(a). Figure 7 shows the near-field pat-
tern measured when the device was lasing, as well as las-
ing spectra at various points. Despite the large lasing
area of 150 ␮m ⫻ 150 ␮m, single-wavelength operation
was achieved across the device. Comparison between the
measured lasing wavelength and the band structure in
Fig. 6(b) confirmed that the lasing oscillation occurred at
the ⌫-point of band A as theoretically predicted, demon-
strating that this device indeed operates at the bandedges
of the 2D photonic band structure, and that large-area
single-mode operation is possible.
B. Beam Pattern Control by Designing Lattice Points
The pattern of the surface-emitted beam from a photonic
crystal laser can be determined by the Fourier transfor-
mation of its 2D electromagnetic distribution. This im-
plies that the beam pattern can be tailored by varying the
electromagnetic distribution in the 2D plane, that is, by
changing the coupling state of the light that propagates in
Fig. 6. Band diagram of the photonic crystal laser shown in Fig.
5. (a) Theoretical photonic band structure. The resonant mode is
formed at the bandedges, indicated by the dots in the center. (b)
Measured band structure.
Susumu Noda
Fig. 7. Near-field pattern of the photonic crystal laser shown in Fig. 5, measured while the device was lasing. Lasing spectra at various
points are shown.
various directions in the 2D plane. One effective method
of achieving this is to vary the shape and spacing of the
lattice points in the photonic crystal. Figures 8(a) and 8(b)
show the electromagnetic field distribution in the unit lat-
tice of a crystal when the holes placed at the lattice points
are circles and equilateral triangles, respectively. Chang-
ing the shape of the holes from circular to triangular re-
moves the fourfold rotational symmetry in the electro-
magnetic field distribution; there is no symmetry in the
x-direction for triangular holes. Figures 8(c)–8(g) show
the electromagnetic field distributions over the entire
crystal in cases where shifts of the lattice points were in-
troduced in order to increase the lattice spacing in either
the longitudinal or transverse directions. Figure 8(c) rep-
resents the case with no shift, while Figs. 8(d)–8(g) repre-
sent increasing numbers of shifts. It is apparent that
shifting the lattice spacing reverses the polarity of the
electromagnetic field distribution at the position of the
shift. Further increasing the number of shifts repeats the
reversal of the electromagnetic field. It is clear that the
electromagnetic field distribution in the plane can be con-
trolled in various ways by appropriate design of the pho-
tonic crystal.
Based on the above considerations, we fabricated de-
vices with various different photonic crystal structures, as
Vol. 27, No. 11 / November 2010 / J. Opt. Soc. Am. B B5
shown in Figs. 9(a)–9(f). All of these devices exhibited las-
ing oscillation at room temperature with a stable single
mode. The right-hand panels of Figs. 9(a)–9(f) show the
corresponding measured beam patterns. An interesting
array of patterns was obtained ranging from a single
doughnut shape to twofold doughnut, fourfold doughnut,
and regular circular shapes. The beam divergence was ex-
tremely narrow, reflecting the fact that these are large-
area coherent laser oscillations.
The various beam patterns can be explained as follows.
First, the device in Fig. 9(a) has regular circular holes,
and the corresponding electromagnetic field distribution
exhibits well-defined rotational symmetry as shown in
Fig. 8(a). When the laser light corresponding to this elec-
tromagnetic field distribution is output to free space, the
electromagnetic field at the center of the beam cancels out
to yield a doughnut-shaped beam. When a shift of the lat-
tice period is introduced, as shown in Fig. 9(b), a polarity
(⫹ and ⫺) reversal of the electromagnetic field distribu-
tion occurs at the location of the shift, as shown in Fig.
8(d). This changes the nature of the interference of the
light emitted to free space, yielding two doughnut beams.
As the number of lattice shifts is increased, changes in
the interference conditions are repeated, yielding a vari-
ety of other doughnut-shaped beams as shown in Figs.
B6 J. Opt. Soc. Am. B / Vol. 27, No. 11 / November 2010
Fig. 8. Electromagnetic field distribution in various photonic
crystal lasers. Black arrows represent the electric field, and
shading indicates the magnetic field in the direction perpendicu-
lar to the paper. Field distributions around the lattice points are
shown for (a) circular lattice points and (b) triangular lattice
points. Field distributions over the entire crystal are shown for
circular lattice points with (c) no phase shift, (d) one phase shift
in the x-direction, (e) two phase shifts in the x-direction, (f) one
phase shift in both directions, and (g) two phase shifts in both
directions. The phase in each region was shifted by ␲ across the
boundary where the phase shift was introduced.
9(b)–9(e). In particular, the doughnut beam in Fig. 9(a) is
expected to possess interesting characteristics such as the
ability to manipulate non-transparent substances by act-
ing as a pair of optical tweezers, and focusing character-
istics that exceed the wavelength limit (see Fig. 10).
In contrast, triangular lattice holes [Fig. 9(f)] remove
the rotational symmetry of the electromagnetic field dis-
tribution, as shown in Fig. 8(b). The cancellation effect at
the center of the beam in Fig. 8(a) is also lost, yielding a
clean circular pattern. In this case, the polarization is
also different, being linear. Introducing such a non-
symmetrical effect is a key factor in achieving high optical
output power by enabling a greater optical extraction ef-
ficiency in the perpendicular direction. A device con-
structed using equilateral triangular air holes exhibited
continuous room-temperature optical output in excess of
100 mW. Furthermore, we have also fabricated devices
with a higher degree of non-symmetry, and succeeded in
achieving a maximum output of more than 1 W in pulsed
drive mode [39].
Fig. 9. Electron micrographs (left-hand panels) and obtained
beam patterns (right-hand panels) of fabricated photonic crystals
used to construct lasers. Photonic crystals with circular lattice
points are shown with (a) no shift of the lattice period, (b) one
lattice shift in one direction, (c) two lattice shifts in one direction,
(d) one lattice shift in both directions, and (e) two lattice shifts in
both directions. (f) Triangular lattice points with no phase shift.
Susumu Noda
Fig. 10. (a). Example of polarized doughnut beam from a pho-
tonic crystal laser, and schematic picture of the focusing method.
(b)–(d) Optical trapping of a tungsten particle using a doughnut-
shaped focal point. The particle was firmly held at the focal point
even when the glass slide was removed.
C. Extension to the Blue–Violet Region
It is anticipated that extension of the lasing wavelength
of photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers to the blue–
violet region will greatly broaden the number of potential
applications. For example, such lasers could act as a light
source for later-generation high-density optical disks, and
as a light source for the observation and manipulation of
microscopic objects. It should also be possible to control
the polarization of high-power blue–violet surface-
emitting lasers operating in a single longitudinal and
transverse mode, and even to arrange them in 2D arrays.
These blue–violet lasers are expected to be key light
sources in a variety of fields including information storage
and processing, optical manipulation, and nanobio appli-
cations.
Novel photonic crystal growth technology, recently de-
veloped for GaN and known as air-hole retained over-
growth (AROG), which takes advantage of crystal growth
characteristics specific to the GaN system, has enabled
the fabrication of high-quality GaN/air 2D photonic crys-
tals inside a laser. This has recently allowed current in-
jection into a photonic crystal surface-emitting laser in
the blue–violet region to be achieved for the first time
[23]. Figure 11(a) shows the lasing oscillation of this de-
vice (the near-field pattern measured after lasing had
started), confirming large-area lasing oscillation in the
blue–violet region. The central region is an electrode
共100 ␮m ⫻ 100 ␮m兲. Figure 11(b) shows the corresponding
far-field pattern (beam pattern) during the lasing opera-
tion. The divergence of the characteristic doughnut-
shaped beam is less than 1°.
Fig. 11. (a).Near-field pattern and (b) far-field pattern (beam
shape) of a blue–violet photonic crystal laser during lasing
oscillation.
Susumu Noda
4. CONCLUSIONS
The first half of this review shows that the advent of the
ultimate nanolaser is coming close to reality as the result
of utilization of the photonic bandgap effect, progress in
optical nanocavities, and the integration of nanocavities
with quantum dots. It is expected that this type of ulti-
mate nanolaser will finally be realized by focusing re-
search on developing an effective method for current in-
jection [40]. Such nanolasers will have a huge impact on
developments such as single-photon devices for quantum
telecommunications and quantum information process-
ing, and strongly-coupled photon-electron devices.
The second half of the paper describes the current sta-
tus and recent developments in the field of photonic crys-
tal surface-emitting lasers. We have shown that the band-
edge effect of 2D photonic crystals enables large-area
single longitudinal and transverse mode lasing oscilla-
tion, as well as complete control over the beam patterns
obtained. Lasing oscillation in the blue–violet region has
been achieved with GaN photonic crystal surface-emitting
lasers. Although space does not permit further discussion
here, we have very recently realized a device with an out-
put power exceeding several tens of watts [39]. We have
also constructed a single device in which the beam direc-
tion can be changed [41]. We firmly believe that the de-
velopment of photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers will
further accelerate, and that they will prove to be a key
light source in fields such as information storage and pro-
cessing and optical manipulation applications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author thanks the faculty members, research staff,
and students at the Quantum Optoelectronics Laboratory,
Kyoto University.
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