Strain effects and phase transitions in photonic resonator crystals

Optical structures with periodic variations of the dielectric constant in one or more directions (photonic crystals1) have been employed extensively for studying optical diffraction phenomena. Practical interest in such structures arises from the possibilities2,3,4 they offer for tailoring photon modes, and thereby the characteristics of light propagation and light–matter interactions. Photonic resonator crystals comprising two-dimensional arrays of coupled optical microcavities have been fabricated using vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser wafers5. In such structures, the light propagates mostly normal to the periodic plane. Therefore, the corresponding lateral Bragg-periodicities are larger, a feature that is advantageous for device manufacture as it allows for larger lattice constants in the lateral direction. Here we investigate strain effects in a photonic resonator crystal by shifting neighbouring lattice rows of microcavities in opposite directions, thereby introducing an alternating square or quasi-hexagonal pattern of shear strain. We find that, for strain values below a critical threshold, the lasing photon mode is virtually locked to the corresponding mode supported by the unstrained photonic crystal. At the critical strain value, we observe a phase-transition-like switching between the square and quasi-hexagonal lattice modes. The tolerance of subcritical strains suggests that the resonator crystal may be useful for applications requiring high spatial coherence across the lattice, while the mode switching could potentially be exploited in free-space optical communications.