Two-dimensional (2D) materials exhibit attractive properties for photonics and optoelectronics. In particular, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have shown great promise for light emission.  In this talk, I will showcase how such materials can be judiciously incorporated in silicon-on-insulator resonant structures in order to design ultra-compact and efficient lasers for both integrated and free-space photonics.

I will first focus on CW free-space lasers based on sharply-resonant metasurfaces. Incorporating an optically-pumped MoS₂/WSe₂ heterobilayer and exploiting the long-lived interlayer exciton allows for light emission at room temperatures in the range 1100 nm – 1300 nm. By engineering the coupling between the optical mode and the gain medium, a low lasing threshold can be achieved [1]. I will thoroughly discuss design principles, lasing performance, and thermal stability. I will also discuss integrated lasers based on silicon nitride disk resonators overlaid with MoS₂/WSe₂ and focus on both CW and pulsed (Q-switched) variants [2,3]. In the latter, saturable absorption (SA) is provided by a 2D material such as graphene in order to retain ultra-compact dimensions. Using different 2D materials for gain and SA (other TMDs, MXenes, topological insulators, etc.) allows for obtaining a broad range of pulse-train metrics [4].

In parallel, I will be discussing the development of a dedicated temporal coupled-mode theory (CMT) framework extracted from the semiclassical Maxwell-Bloch equations and first-order perturbation theory [5]. Compared to other reduced-order models in the literature, it preserves phase information for the lasing mode, allows for the accurate modeling of resonant pumping, and can be used to determine the lasing frequency when the cold cavity frequency and the atomic transition (peak of gain spectrum) are detuned. It is proven highly accurate when compared against full-wave nonlinear simulations and can be readily expanded to any gain medium. As an example, I will discuss the effect of reabsorption in organic dye molecules [6].

1. ACS Applied Nano Materials 9, 2301, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsanm.5c04888 [1] 
2. Physical Review Applied 19, 064027, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1002/adpr.202300249 [2]
3. Advanced Photonics Research 5, 2300249, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1103/dnst-bm1h [3]
4. Physical Review Applied 24, 014028, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.19.064027 [4]
5. Journal of Applied Physics 136, 011101, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0190631 [5]
6. Optics Express 34, 37308, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.585914 [6]