Photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers with modulated photonic crystals enabling 2D beam scanning and various beam pattern emission

Photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs) with modulated photonic crystals have attracted much attention for their unrivaled capabilities, such as broad area coherent resonance, and lens-free beam scanning and flash illumination. In this paper, we first explain the principles and the development of PCSELs with modulated photonic crystals toward non-mechanical two-dimensional (2D) beam-scanning applications. Then, we show PCSELs with modulated photonic crystals, whose modulation is designed based on an inverse Fourier transform to enable the emission of various beam patterns, such as flash patterns and multi-dot patterns, from a single photonic crystal without using external optical elements. This demonstration underscores the flexibility of PCSELs with modulated photonic crystals as compact, highly functional light sources for a wide range of applications, including not only beam-scanning-type, flash-type, and multidot-type light detection and ranging but also advanced object recognition and adaptive illumination.