Breakthroughs in Photonics 2012: Breakthroughs in Nanomembranes and Nanomembrane Lasers

Crystalline semiconductor nanomembranes (NMs) offer unprecedented opportunities for unique electronic and photonic devices for vertically stacked high-density photonic/electronic integration, high-performance flexible electronics, and adaptive flexible/conformal photonics. We present here major progresses reported over the last year, in the area of semiconductor NM photonics, with focuses on the innovative membrane laser devices and structures for silicon photonics and flexible optoelectronics.