Coupling Analysis of GaAs-Based Microdisk Lasers With Different External Claddings

In this paper, we analyze the coupling of light from a GaAs microdisk laser into a waveguide. Starting from an air cladding, we examine several configurations to couple light into the waveguide with different cladding structures aimed to foster light coupling into the waveguide: photonic crystal and metallic (plasmonic cladding). In these coupling schemes, we tried to optimize the coupling of the emitted light into the waveguide, while maintaining a reasonable quality factor to allow the lasing operation of the device. We show that a plasmonic layer, introduced beside the waveguide can lead to a significant improvement in the coupling efficiency, reaching an efficiency close to 80%.