Optical mode calculation in large-area photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers

Abstract

We discuss algorithms and numerical challenges in constructing and resolving spectral prob- lems for photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs) with photonic crystal layers and large (up to several tens of mm2) emission areas. We show that finite difference schemes created using coarse numerical meshes provide sufficient accuracy for several major (lowest-threshold) modes of particular device designs. Our technique is applied to the example of large-area all- semiconductor PCSELs, showing how it can be used to optimize device performance.