Unidirectional light emission from low-index polymer microlasers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that low-index polymer microlasers can achieve unidirectional light emission through chaotic ray dynamics, confirmed by experiments, simulations, and mode calculations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism for unidirectional emission in low-index polymer microlasers based on chaotic ray transport along unstable manifolds.

Findings

Highly directional emission observed experimentally

Ray-tracing simulations match experimental results

Mode calculations support the chaotic transport mechanism

Abstract

We report on experiments with deformed polymer microlasers that have a low refractive index and exhibit unidirectional light emission. We demonstrate that the highly directional emission is due to transport of light rays along the unstable manifold of the chaotic saddle in phase space. Experiments, ray-tracing simulations, and mode calculations show very good agreement.