Vertical-cavity in-plane heterostructures: Physics and applications

We show that in-plane (lateral) heterostructures realized in vertical cavities with high contrast grating reflectors can be used to significantly modify the anisotropic dispersion curvature, also interpreted as the photon effective mass. This design freedom enables exotic configurations of heterostructures and many interesting applications. The effects of the anisotropic photon effective mass on the mode confinement, mode spacing, and transverse modes are investigated. As a possible application, the method of boosting the speed of diode lasers by engineering the photon-photon resonance is discussed. Based on this platform, we propose a system of two laterally coupled cavities, which shows the breaking of parity-time symmetry in vertical cavity structures. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.