Whispering‐gallery microcavities with unidirectional laser emission

Optical whispering‐gallery mode (WGM) microcavities featuring ultrahigh Q factors and small mode volumes enhance significantly the interaction between light and matter, becoming an excellent platform for achieving ultralow‐threshold microlasers. However, the emission of traditional WGMs is isotropic due to the rotational symmetry of cavity geometries, which hinders the potential photonics applications. In this review, the progress in WGM microcavities towards unidirectional laser emission is summarized. When a subwavelength scatterer is placed on the boundary of the microcavity, the unidirectional emission occurs due to the collimation effect of the microcavity‐enhanced scattering field. Furthermore, microcavities deformed from the circular shapes can not only produce the chaos‐assisted unidirectional emission, but also maintain high Q factors by special design and fabrication processes. Finally, gratings along the circumference of the WGM microdisk or microring can scatter the WGMs in the vertical direction. The review also lists several important applications of these types of microcavities, such as wide‐band laser illumination source, free‐space coupling, evanescent‐field enhancement, optical energy storage, and sensing.

     

From amplified spontaneous emission to laser oscillation: dynamics in a short-cavity polymer laser

We present an experimental study of the input-output characteristics of an ultrashort pumped pi -conjugated polymer in solution. By comparing the results for configurations with zero, one, and two mirrors around the polymer, we show that the physics is driven by amplified spontaneous emission and not by cooperative emission. This finding is substantiated by picosecond-time-scale measurements of the evolution of the emission of the polymer. For the two-mirror configuration a sharply defined threshold for laser oscillation is found; the output of the laser exhibits strong pulsations.     

Amplified spontaneous emission contrast of CPA laser

The influence on the level of amplified spontaneous emission （ASE） contrast resulting from the different seed pulse energies has been experimentally studied in a 10-TW-level femtosecond Ti：sapphire chirped pulse amplification laser. It is found that, with the seed pulse energy increasing, the ASE pedestal is suppressed more efficiently, and the ASE contrast is improved with a saturable tendency. The measurement of -2×10^-8 ASE contrast in the range of more than 50 ps before the main pulse is achieved in the laser.     

Polariton emission in GaN microcavities

We present a detailed experimental study aimed at demonstrating the polariton nature of the photoluminescence emission in a bulk GaN microcavity grown on (111) silicon. The comparison of the photoluminescence with coincident reflectivity measurements at different temperatures shows an anticrossing behaviour with a Rabi splitting of the order of 35 meV up to room temperature. Relevant confirmations of the mixing between excitons and photons are found in the analysis of the spectral linewidth and of the time resolved kinetics.     

Stability analysis of erbium-doped fibre laser dynamics with spontaneous emission

A linear stability analysis of erbium-doped fibre laser dynamics including spontaneous emission is presented. It is shown that spontaneous emission favours the CW solution near threshold and pushes the unstable steady states towards higher values of the ion pair concentration in the case of a bad cavity.     

Controlling the spontaneous emission of a superconducting transmon qubit

We present a detailed characterization of coherence in seven transmon qubits in a circuit QED architecture. We find that spontaneous emission rates are strongly influenced by far off-resonant modes of the cavity and can be understood within a semiclassical circuit model. A careful analysis of the spontaneous qubit decay into a microwave transmission-line cavity can accurately predict the qubit lifetimes over 2 orders of magnitude in time and more than an octave in frequency. Coherence times T1 and T_{2};{*} of more than a microsecond are reproducibly demonstrated.     

Femtosecond high-power spontaneous mode-locked operation in vertical-external cavity surface-emitting laser with gigahertz oscillation

We realize a femtosecond high-power spontaneous mode-locked operation with gigahertz oscillation in a vertical-external cavity surface-emitting laser under the condition of eliminating the internal and external unwanted reflection. We find that the reflectivity of the output coupler has a significant influence not only on the output power but also on the output pulse duration. With an incident pump power of 20 W, we have achieved 2.35 W of average output power with 778 fs pulse duration at a repetition rate of 2.17 GHz. The shortest pulse duration was 654 fs at an average output power of 0.45 W.     

Far-infrared laser oscillation due to cyclotron emission in p-type germanium

Far-infrared laser oscillation due to cyclotron emission in the light hole band of p-type germanium was observed under crossed electric and magnetic fields. The wavelength is inversely proportional to magnetic fields with a cyclotron mass ofm _c =0.048m _c . Numerical calculations based on Luttinger Hamiltonian show that mixing of wavefunctions between the light and heavy hole bands causes population inversion betweenn=0 andn=1 light-hole Landau levels. It is also shown that non-equidistant energy spacing of light-hole Landau levels is essential to yield net amplification.     

Studying polymer thin films with hybrid optical microcavities

Organic and inorganic polymeric thin films have numerous applications, including solar cells, biodetection, and nanocomposites. Improving our understanding of the fundamental material behavior is critical to designing polymers with ideal behavior and increased lifetime. However, there are limited nondestructive characterization methods that are able to perform these high-resolution measurements. In this Letter, we demonstrate a method that is able to detect temperature-induced changes in the refractive index of polystyrene polymer thin films as small as 10(-7). This approach is based on optical microcavity resonators. The experimental results agree well with the theoretical simulations.     

Correlated spontaneous emission laser as an entanglement amplifier

We consider a two-photon correlated emission laser as a source of an entangled radiation with a large number of photons in each mode. The system consists of three-level atomic schemes inside a doubly resonant cavity. We study the dynamics of this system in the presence of cavity losses, concluding that the creation of entangled states with photon numbers up to tens of thousands seems achievable.     

High-power near-diffraction-limited solid-state amplified spontaneous emission laser devices

We present investigations into high-power scaling of solid-state amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) laser sources by use of two high-gain (~10(4)) Nd:YVO(4) bounce amplifiers. The sources deliver high power with a high-quality spatial output, but unlike a laser they have a high misalignment tolerance and do not require a precisely aligned cavity. In one system with two amplifiers, we demonstrate an ASE source with 24.5W of output power with good spatial quality, M(2)<2.5 in the horizontal and M(2)<1.2 in the vertical. In a more sophisticated setup, the two amplifiers are arranged in a loop configuration producing 30W of ASE output with near-diffraction-limited spatial quality, with M(2)<1.3 in the horizontal and M(2)<1.2 in the vertical, at an ~38% optical-to-optical conversion efficiency.     

Controlling spontaneous emission with the local density of states of honeycomb photonic crystals

We calculated the local density of state for various positions in a photonic crystal of honeycomb lattice to study how the spontaneous emission rate of a radiating dipole is altered in the presence of the photonic crystal. The local density of states is found to be position-sensitive and its value can be enhanced or depressed relative to the density of states, depending on the location of the dipole. Our study shows that the density of states tends to underestimate the effect of a photonic crystal on the prohibition of light propagation, while on the contrary tends to overestimate the effect on the enhancement of light emission. The calculations also indicate that it is possible to tailor the spontaneous emission of an active medium by careful selecting its location in the photonic crystal. The results are helpful in determining the insertion location of the active medium and in evaluating the efficiency of active photonic crystal devices such as light-emitting diodes or lasers.     

Nonlinear terahertz emission in semiconductor microcavities

We consider the nonlinear terahertz emission by the system of cavity polaritons in the regime of polariton lasing. To account for the quantum nature of terahertz-polariton coupling, we use the Lindblad master equation approach and demonstrate that quantum microcavities reveal a rich variety of nonlinear phenomena in the terahertz range, including bistability, short terahertz pulse generation, and terahertz switching.     

Modification of spontaneous emission rate in planar dielectric microcavities – seen as superradiance and subradiance

The modification of the spontaneous emission rate of an atom in a cavity can be seen as superradiance/subradiance induced by virtual image dipoles. This result is used to gain physical insight why the spontaneous emission is enhanced or suppressed in various cavity geometries. A general model for spontaneous emission engineering, which simultaneously handles dispersive and lossy cavities, is derived.     

Pressure dependence of laser oscillation and superfluorescent emission from an optically pumped CF4 laser

Experiments on pressure dependence of a CF₄ laser have been carried out to elucidate dynamic characteristics of CF₄ molecules pumped by CO₂ lasers. The results are followed by a model calculation which characterizes collisional quenching of the energy levels related to the stimulated emission. The enhancement of the laser output induced by buffer-gas addition, which was found under specific conditions, is discussed in relation to the competition between laser and superfluorescent emissions.     

Self-amplified spontaneous emission free-electron laser with an energy-chirped electron beam and undulator tapering

We report the first experimental implementation of a method based on simultaneous use of an energy chirp in the electron beam and a tapered undulator, for the generation of ultrashort pulses in a self-amplified spontaneous emission mode free-electron laser (SASE FEL). The experiment, performed at the SPARC FEL test facility, demonstrates the possibility of compensating the nominally detrimental effect of the chirp by a proper taper of the undulator gaps. An increase of more than 1 order of magnitude in the pulse energy is observed in comparison to the untapered case, accompanied by FEL spectra where the typical SASE spiking is suppressed.     

Enhanced spontaneous emission from InAs/GaAs quantum dots in pillar microcavities emitting at telecom wavelengths

Optical properties of InAs/GaAs quantum dots in micropillar cavities emitting at 1.3 microm are studied by time-resolved microphotoluminescence. The Purcell effect is observed with an enhancement of the decay rate by a factor of two for quantum dots in resonance with the cavity mode.