Zero-energy topological states, which are protected by chiral symmetry against certain perturbations topologically, localize at interfaces between trivial and non-trivial phases in the Su–Schrieffer–Heeger (SSH) chain model. Here, we propose and demonstrate a method to manipulate chiral symmetry itself to improve the localized interfaces and enlarge the mode volume of topological states in the SSH model, thus optimizing the lasing performance of localized interfaces. As multiple defects corresponding to off-diagonal perturbations in an eigenmatrix are introduced, the topological state expands and extends to extra defects at the topological interface without breaking chiral symmetry. We apply the proposed method in electrical pumping semiconductor laser arrays to verify our theoretical prediction and optimize the output characteristics of the devices. The measured results of the proposed multi-defect SSH laser array show that the output power has been increased by 27%, and the series resistance and far-field divergence have been reduced by half compared to the traditional SSH laser array, establishing a high-performance light source for integrated silicon photonics, infrared light detection and ranging, and so on. Our work demonstrates that the proposed method is capable of improving topological localized interfaces and redistributing zero-energy topological states. Furthermore, our method can be applied to other platforms and inspire optimizations of more devices in broader areas.

We design a 645 nm laser diode (LD) with a narrow vertical beam divergence angle based on the mode expansion layer. The vertical beam divergence of 10.94° at full width at half-maximum is realized under 1.5 A continuous-wave operation, which is the smallest vertical beam divergence for such an LD based on the mode expansion layer, to the best of our knowledge. The threshold current and output power are 1.07 A and 0.94 W, limited by the thermal rollover for the 100 µm wide and 1500 µm long broad area laser, and the slope efficiency is 0.71 W/A. The low coherence device is fabricated with the speckle contrast of 3.6% and good directional emission. Such 645 nm LDs have promising applications in laser display.