Ultra-low threshold gallium nitride photonic crystal nanobeam laser

We report exceptionally low thresholds (9.1 μJ/cm²) for room temperature lasing at ∼450 nm in optically pumped Gallium Nitride (GaN) nanobeam cavity structures. The nanobeam cavity geometry provides high theoretical Q (>100 000) with small modal volume, leading to a high spontaneous emission factor, β = 0.94. The active layer materials are Indium Gallium Nitride (InGaN) fragmented quantum wells (fQWs), a critical factor in achieving the low thresholds, which are an order-of-magnitude lower than obtainable with continuous QW active layers. We suggest that the extra confinement of photo-generated carriers for fQWs (compared to QWs) is responsible for the excellent performance.