Next Generation Nanocavity Lasers

Abstract

Recent progress in device physics and nanotechnology will enable a new generation of high performance laser diodes. This presentation will discuss the application of nanotechnology to achieve unprecedented confinement of both photons and electrons to develop the next generation of lasers, photonic integrated circuits, and sensors. The application of 2-dimensional photonic crystals into vertical cavity lasers to form coherent arrays and micro-fluidic sensors will be reported. Coherent coupling in arrays allows for increased power in the emission far field, which may be used in applications such as imaging, free space interconnects, and beam steering. The first gain localized electrically injected photonic crystal light emitters are explored with the goal of understanding their emission characteristics from theoretical and experimental perspectives.

Speaker Biography

Kent D. Choquette (M’97–F’03) received B.S. degrees in Engineering Physics and Applied Mathematics from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 1984 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985 and 1990, respectively. From 1990 to 1992 he held a postdoctoral appointment at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ. He then joined Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM, as a Postdoctoral Researcher and in 1993 as a Principal Member of Technical Staff. He became a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000, and in 2005 became the Director of the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory. His Photonic Device Research Group is centered around the design, fabrication, characterization, and applications of vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), novel microcavity light sources, nanofabrication technologies, and hybrid integration techniques.

From 2000 to 2002, he was an IEEE/Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS) Distinguished Lecturer. He has authored more than 200 technical publications and three book chapters, and has presented numerous invited talks and tutorials on VCSELs.

Dr. Choquette has served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics and IEEE Photonic Technology Letters, and as a Guest Editor of IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics. He is a Fellow of the IEEE/Lasers and Electro-Optics Society and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America.