Inverse-cavity structure for low-threshold miniature lasers.

Creating micro and nano lasers, high threshold gain is an inherent problem that have critically restricted their great technological potentials. Here, we propose an inverse-cavity laser structure where its threshold gain in the shortest-cavity regime is order-of-magnitude lower than the conventional cavity configurations. In the proposed structure, a resonant feedback mechanism efficiently transfers external optical gain to the cavity mode at a higher rate for a shorter cavity, hence resulting in the threshold gain reducing with decreasing cavity length in stark contrast to the conventional cavity structures. We provide a fundamental theory and rigorous numerical analyses confirming the feasibility of the proposed structure. Remarkably, the threshold gain reduces down by a factor ~ 10 for a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser structure and ~ 0.17 for a lattice-plasmonic nanocavity structure. Therefore, the proposed approach may produce extremely efficient miniature lasers desirable for variety of applications potentially beyond the present limitations.