We propose and demonstrate a tunable photonic crystal nanolaser consisting of 1D periodic nanorods wrapped in deformable polydimethylsiloxane. In addition to low-threshold and long-term lasing stability, the nanolaser also displays reproducible and reliable wavelength tuning with a large tunability of 7.7 nm under 1% compression. By further associating with stretching, a very wide wavelength-tunable range of 155 nm that almost spans the entire $\mathrm{S}+\mathrm{C}+\mathrm{L}$ telecommunication bands is successfully demonstrated with a single nanolaser device.

Reconfigurable, reliable, and robust nanolasers with wavelengths tunable in the telecommunication bands are currently being sought after for use as flexible light sources in photonic integrated circuits. Here, we propose and demonstrate tunable nanolasers based on 1D nanoblocks embedded within stretchable polydimethylsiloxane. Our lasers show a large wavelength tunability of 7.65 nm per 1% elongation. Moreover, this tunability is reconfigurable and reliable under repeated stretching/relaxation tests. By applying excessive stretching, wide wavelength tuning over a range of 80 nm (spanning the S, C, and L telecommunication bands) is successfully demonstrated. Furthermore, as a stretching sensor, an enhanced wavelength response to elongation of 9.9 nm per % is obtained via the signal differential from two nanoblock lasers positioned perpendicular to each other. The minimum detectable elongation is as small as 0.056%. Nanoblock lasers can function as reliable tunable light sources in telecommunications and highly sensitive on-chip structural deformation sensors.

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) with a sharp field gradient and extremely strong field intensity is very attractive for near-field optical nano-tweezers manipulating tiny bio-objects with sizes ranging from sub-10 nm to micrometers. To lower the power consumption of optical trapping and improve the accessibility of LSPR for the targets, we propose and study a plasmonic bowtie notch design with assisted periodic curved grooves. By generating and coupling extra surface plasmon polariton waves into the LSPR, the presented design herein can significantly reduce the required power consumption in experiments for stably trapping single and multiple polystyrene spheres. We believe the idea and results presented in this paper would be helpful in realizing highly efficient nano-tweezers in the plasmonic circuit on-chip.

In this report, we investigate the fabrication process of 12-fold quasi-photonic crystal microcavity with size-controlled nano-post beneath for electrically-driven structure by fine-tuning the wet-etching time. By finite-element method, we simulate and analyze the heat transfer behaviors of microcavities with different nano-post sizes and shapes. From the real devices, we obtain whispering-gallery (WG) single-mode lasing action with high measured quality factor of 8 250 and low threshold of 0.6 mW when the nano-post size is as large as 830 nm in diameter. By varying the substrate temperature, WG single-mode lasing action is still obtained when the substrate temperature is as high as 70degC. Besides, the lasing wavelength red-shift rate is also improved compared with the microcavity without nano-post beneath. By varying the pump condition, lasing action is still observed at room temperature when the pump duty cycle increases to 16.0%. Thus, for electrically-driven photonic crystal microcavity lasers, this nano-post can serve as current injection pathway and heat sink at the same time.