Structure-induced asymmetry between counterpropagating modes and the reciprocity principle in whistle-geometry ring lasers

Greatly enhanced high-speed modulation performance has been recently predicted in numerical calculations for a novel injection-locking scheme involving a distributed Bragg reflector master laser monolithically integrated with a unidirectional whistle-geometry semiconductor microring laser. Operation of these devices relies on the assumption of large difference between modal losses experienced by counterpropagating modes. In this work, we confirm the unidirectionality of the whistle-geometry configuration through rigorous three-dimensional finite-difference timedomain (FDTD) simulation by showing a strong asymmetry in photon lifetimes between the two counterpropagating modes. We also show that similar asymmetry occurs in three-port couplers, whose structure resembles the coupling section of whistle-geometry lasers. We explain why these results do not violate the Helmholtz reciprocity principle.