Photonic-crystal distributed-feedback lasers

The far-field emission characteristics and spectral purity of photonic-crys tal distributed-feedback (PCDFB) lasers, in which the grating is defined on a two-dimensional lattice that is tilted with respect to the facets, are a nalyzed using a self-consistent time-domain simulation. It is shown that bo th conventional DFB and angled-grating DFB devices are special cases of the PCDFB laser, which combines and enhances the best features of each. The si mulations project both high beam quality and high spectral purity out to pu mp stripes of width much greater than 100 mum. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.