Reconfigurable Photonic Crystal Laser

We propose and demonstrate reconfigurable microfiber-coupled photonic crystal (PhC) lasers. By placing a curved microfiber on a PhC slab waveguide, the effective index of the contacted PhC waveguide region is slightly increased in comparison to that of the other un-contacted parts of the waveguide. In the proximity of a properly-selected spectral position in the PhC dispersion curve, the physical location of a PhC laser resonator can be defined (and redefined) repeatably by simply relocating the microfiber along the PhC waveguide. For an optimally designed PhC waveguide, the coupling efficiency with a fiber and the quality factor are calculated to be 90% and 54,000, respectively. We experimentally demonstrate reconfigurable PhC laser operating at 1599 nm.