Efficient light amplification in low gain materials due to a photonic band edge effect

One of the possibilities of increasing optical gain of a light emitting source is by embedding it into a photonic crystal (PhC). If the properties of the PhC are tuned so that the emission wavelength of the light source with gain falls close to the photonic band edge of the PhC, then due to low group velocity of the light modes near the band edge caused by many multiple reflections of light on the photonic structure, the stimulated emission can be significantly enhanced. Here, we perform simulation of the photonic band edge effect on the light intensity of spectrally broad source interacting with a diamond PhC with low optical gain. We show that even for the case of low gain, up to 10-fold increase of light intensity output can be obtained for the two-dimensional PhC consisting of only 19 periodic layers of infinitely high diamond rods ordered into a square lattice. Moreover, considering the experimentally feasible structure composed of diamond rods of finite height - PhC slab - we show that the gain enhancement, even if reduced compared to the ideal case of infinite rods, still remains relatively high. For this particular structure, we show that up to 3.5-fold enhancement of light intensity can be achieved.