On thresholdless lasing features in high-$\beta$ nitride nanobeam cavities: a quantum optical study

TL;DR

This study demonstrates high-$eta$ nanobeam lasers with near-ideal spontaneous emission coupling, revealing thresholdless lasing behavior at room temperature and a unique transition without a nonlinear threshold at 156 K, advancing nanolaser understanding.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive quantum optical analysis of GaN nanobeam lasers, showing thresholdless lasing features and the interplay of gain contributions across temperatures.

Findings

High-$eta$ lasing observed at room temperature.

Lasing transition occurs without a threshold nonlinearity at 156 K.

Spontaneous emission funneling is highly efficient in GaN nanobeam cavities.

Abstract

Exploring the limits of spontaneous emission coupling is not only one of the central goals in the development of nanolasers, it is also highly relevant regarding future large-scale photonic integration requiring energy-efficient coherent light sources with a small footprint. These studies are accompanied by a vivid debate on how to prove and interpret lasing in the high-$\beta$ regime. We investigate close-to-ideal spontaneous emission coupling in GaN nanobeam lasers grown on silicon. Due to their high optical quality, such nanobeam cavities allow for efficient funneling of spontaneous emission from the quantum well gain material into the laser mode. By performing a comprehensive optical and quantum-optical characterization, supported by microscopic modeling of the nanolasers, we identify high-$\beta$ lasing at room temperature and show a lasing transition in the absence of a threshold nonlinearity at 156 K. This peculiar characteristic is explained in terms of a temperature and excitation power dependent interplay between 0D and 2D gain contributions.