Room-temperature operation of VCSEL-pumped photonic crystal lasers

Room-temperature operation of two-dimensional photonic crystal lasers optically pumped by a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser emitting at 860 nm is reported. The photonic crystal membrane is surrounded by air on both sides and consists of four compressively strained quantum wells as the active region. The incident threshold pump power of an approximately 2.6-μm-diameter hexagonal defect cavity laser operating at 1.6 μm is 2.4 mW.