Directional stimulated emission from deformed GaN micropillar cavities

Whispering gallery mode (WGM) lasers hold promise because of their high Q and low thresholds. Their drawback, however, is the lack of directional emission. Deformed cavities support both regular and chaotic orbits that have emission directionality. Recent work with deformed WGM cavities has shown that regular orbit modes (bow-ties) can provide both higher output and directional emission. Here, we report the first directional stimulated emission from a deformed GaN micropillar cavity. By imaging the micropillar, we show emission due to regular bow-tie orbits, as in previous work, and due to chaotic orbits, the latter have higher intensity emission and lower threshold for stimulated emission.