High speed performance of 2-D vertical-cavity laser diode arrays

We have fabricated and tested 10×10 independently addressable vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diode arrays. Arrays with 55 μm active diameter devices show an average threshold current density of 590 A/cm² and an excellent homogeneity of the output characteristics over the full array size with maximum CW output powers of 12 mW. Broad area laser diodes with active diameters of 75 μm reach output powers of 18 mW for CW operation and 180 mW under pulsed conditions. Small-signal modulation bandwidths are beyond 10 and 8 GHz for the 55 and 75 μm devices, respectively     

Low-loss low-confinement GaAs-AlGaAs DQW laser diode with opticaltrap layer for high-power operation

A low-confinement asymmetric GaAs-AlGaAs double-quantum-well molecular-beam-epitaxy grown laser diode structure with optical trap layer is characterized, The value of the internal absorption coefficient is as low as 1.4 cm^-1, while keeping the series resistance at values comparable cm with symmetrical quantum-well gradient index structures in the same material system. Uncoated devices show COD values of 35 mW/μm. If coated, this should scale to about 90 mW/μm. The threshold current density is about 1000 A/cm² for 2-mm-long devices and a considerable part of it is probably due to recombination in the optical trap layer. Fundamental mode operation is limited to 120-180 mW for 6.5-μm-wide ridge waveguide uncoated devices and to 200-300 mW for 13.5-μm-wide ones, because of thermal waveguiding effects. These values are measured under pulsed conditions, 10 μs/l ms     

GaInNAs-GaAs long-wavelength vertical-cavity surface-emitting laserdiodes

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diodes with GaInNAs-GaAs quantum-well (QW) active layers are demonstrated for the first time. GaInNAs permits the realization of a long-wavelength vertical-cavity laser grown directly on a GaAs substrate. Room-temperature (RT) pulsed operation is achieved, with an active wavelength near 1.18 μm, threshold current density of 3.1 kA/cm², slope efficiency of ~0.04 W/A, and output power above 5 mW for 45-μm-diameter devices. Laser oscillation is observed for temperatures at high as 95°C     

CW high power single-lobed far-field operation of long-cavityAlGaAs-GaAs single-quantum-well laser diodes grown by MOCVD

Data on long-cavity 100-μm-wide broad-stripe laser diodes that lase with a barrow single-lobed far-field pattern in continuous room-temperature operation are presented. Diodes with a cavity length of 1250 μm emit a power of 200 mW per facet into a 2.5° lobe (full width at half maximum). Short-cavity devices (cavity length of 350 μm) lase with a continuously increasing number of lateral modes right from threshold, and exhibit a far-field divergence that is over three times greater than that of 1250-μm diodes. Explanations for the effect of increasing cavity length on the field patterns of these devices are proposed, based on the measured increase in injected carrier diffusion length in long-cavity diodes and the influence of thermal waveguiding and mirror losses on intermodel discrimination     

Resonant-cavity light-emitting diodes operating at 655 nm with ahigh external quantum efficiency and light power

Monolithic resonant cavity light-emitting diodes exhibiting an external quantum efficiency (η_ex) up to 6.5% for 84-μm size devices at a wavelength at 655 nm have been demonstrated. Larger diodes, 150-300 μm in diameter, have the maximum η_ex between 5.5% and 4.9% and launch power output up to 8 mW     

Single wavelength grating filter laser array withGa0.3In0.7As/GaInAsP/InP strained MQW structure

Stable in-phase lateral- and single-longitudinal-mode operation up to four times the threshold (P_o~100 mW) was achieved in a five-element 1.5-μm-wavelength Ga_0.3In_0.7As/GaInAsP/InP compressive strained MQW grating filter laser array. The threshold current and external differential quantum efficiency under pulsed condition were 330 mA (emitter width of 18 μm, active region length of 480 μm) and 17%, respectively     

Threshold currents of 1.3-μm bulk, 1.55-μm bulk, and1.55-μm MQW DFB P-substrate partially inverted buried heterostructurelaser diodes

We investigate the threshold currents of 1.3-μm bulk, 1.55-μm bulk, and 1.55-μm multi-quantum-well (MQW) distributed feedback (DFB) P-substrate partially inverted buried heterostructure (BH) laser diodes experimentally and theoretically. In spite of the larger internal loss of the 1.55-μm bulk laser diodes, the threshold current of the 1.55-μm bulk DFB P-substrate partially inverted BH laser diode is almost the same as that of the 1.3-μm bulk DFB P-substrate partially inverted BH laser diode. The experimentally obtained average threshold current of the 1.3-μm bulk DFB P-substrate partially inverted BH laser diodes is 17 mA and that of the 1.55 μm bulk DFB P-substrate partially inverted BH laser diodes is 16 mA. The calculated threshold current of the 1.3-μm bulk DFB laser diode is 15.3 mA and that of the 1.55-μm bulk DFB laser diode is 18.3 mA, which nearly agree with the calculated values, respectively. We have fabricated two types of five-well 1.55-μm InGaAs-InGaAsP MQW DFB P-substrate partially inverted BH laser diodes. One has barriers whose bandgap energy corresponds to 1.3 μm, and the other has barriers of which bandgap energy corresponds to 1.15 μm. The calculated threshold current of the MQW DFB laser diode with the barriers (λ_g =1.3 μm) is 8.5 mA, which nearly agrees with the experimentally obtained value of 10 mA. However, the calculated threshold current of the MQW DFB laser diode with the barriers (λ_g=1.15 μm) is 7.9 mA which greatly disagrees with the experimentally obtained value of 19 mA, which suggests that the valence band discontinuity between the well and the barrier severely prevents the uniform distribution of the injected holes among five wells     

Er3+-doped fiber amplifier pumped by 0.98 μm laserdiodes

The performance of an Er³⁺-doped fiber amplifier pumped by 0.98 μm InGaAs laser diodes (LDs) is reported. By using a fiber with low Er³⁺ content and optimizing the fiber length, a maximum signal gain of 37.8 dB at 30-mW pump power was realized at a signal wavelength of 1.536 μm. A maximum gain coefficient of 1.9 dB/mW at 14 mW pump power was achieved. It was found that the fiber amplifier pumped by the 0.98-μm LDs is twice as efficient as that pumped by 1.48-μm LDs, from the viewpoint of both required fiber length and the attained gain     

Monolithic serial InGaAs-GaAs-AlGaAs laser diode arrays

Top-contact monolithic serially-biased InGaAs-GaAs-AlGaAs (λ~0.93 μm) broad area strained-layer quantum well laser arrays have been fabricated on a semi-insulating GaAs substrate. The laser array consists of four individual laser diodes and operates up to 2.8 W at 3.6 A (supply limited) per uncoated facet under pulsed conditions (15 kHz, 2 μs). The threshold current is ~0.5 A, and the peak slope efficiency and the peak electrical-to-optical conversion efficiency of an individual laser element are ~0.53 W/A and 14%, respectively. The near-field intensity distribution is shown to be broad enough to fill the entire active region under the p-metal stripe (125 μm) of the individual laser diodes at high current levels     

Improving single-mode VCSEL performance by introducing a longmonolithic cavity

We report on the improvement of several selectively oxidized vertical-cavity surface emitting laser characteristics by introducing a long monolithic cavity. The samples compared are grown with various cavity lengths using solid-source MBE. The 980 nm-regime is chosen as emission wavelength to facilitate growth by using binary GaAs cavity spacers. A record high single-transverse mode output power of 5 mW at a series resistance of 98 Ω is obtained for a 7-μm aperture device with a 4-μm cavity spacer. Using an 8-μm cavity spacer, devices up to 16-μm aperture diameter emit 1.7 mW of single-mode power with a full-width at half-maximum far-field angle below 3.8°     

Recent advances in Sb-based midwave-infrared lasers

Several midwave-infrared (MWIR) lasers have been demonstrated, including 2.8-, 3.1-, 3.2-, 3.4-, 4.1-, and 4.3-μm diodes. The devices utilize multiple-quantum-well (MQW) active regions in which the quantum wells (QW's) consist of InAs-GaInSb broken-gap superlattices (BGSL's). InGaAsSb barrier layers separate the BGSL wells, and InAs-AlSb superlattices are employed as cladding layers. We have observed pulsed laser operation up to 255 K with 3.2-μm devices. Typical pulsed output powers for these devices at 200 K are over 50 mW     

InGaAsP (λ=1.3 μm) strip buried heterostructure lasersgrown by MOCVD

The authors describe InGaAsP-InP index guides strip buried heterostructure lasers (SBH) operating at 1.3 μm with a 1.1-μm guiding layer grown by a two-step atmospheric pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) growth procedure. These lasers are compared with buried heterostructure lasers having similar guiding layers under the active layer but terminated at the edge of the active layer. SBH lasers with 0.15-μm-thick active layer strips, 5-μm wide, and guide layers varying from 0 to 0.7 μm have threshold currents increasing from 34 to 59 mA, and nearly constant differential external quantum efficiencies of 0.2 mW/mA. The threshold current increases more rapidly with temperature with increasing guide layer thickness, with T₀ decreasing from 70°C for lasers without a guide layer to 54.3°C for lasers without a guide layer to 54.3°C for lasers with 0.7-μm-thick guide layers. Output powers of up to 30 mW/facet have been obtained from 254-μm-long lasers and were found to be insensitive to guide layer thickness     

High output power and high temperature operation of 1.5 μmDFB-PPIBH laser diodes

Highly efficient 1.5-μm distributed-feedback (DFB) p-substrate partially-inverted buried heterostructure laser diodes with a thin active layer developed using a metal-organic chemical vapor deposition technique are discussed. An average slope efficiency of 0.26 mW/mA (quantum efficiency 33%) and maximum slope efficiency of 0.39 mW MW/mA (49%) were achieved. The full width at half maximum in the direction perpendicular to the junction plane of 25° was obtained. A high output power of 77 mW was obtained under CW conditions at room temperature. This laser diode lased up to 120°C, and more than 10 mW was obtained, even at 90°C     

Low-threshold 1.3-μm InGaAsN:Sb-GaAs single-quantum-well lasersgrown by molecular beam epitaxy

1.3-μm InGaAsN:Sb-GaAs single-quantum-well laser diodes have been grown by a solid source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using Sb as a surfactant. A record low threshold of 1.02 kA/cm² and a slope efficiency of 0.12 W/A are obtained for broad-area laser diodes under pulsed operation at room temperature. A characteristic temperature of 64 K and a lasing wavelength temperature dependence of 0.38 nm/°C are reported     

Room-temperature operation of VCSEL-pumped photonic crystal lasers

Room-temperature operation of two-dimensional photonic crystal lasers optically pumped by a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser emitting at 860 nm is reported. The photonic crystal membrane is surrounded by air on both sides and consists of four compressively strained quantum wells as the active region. The incident threshold pump power of an approximately 2.6-μm-diameter hexagonal defect cavity laser operating at 1.6 μm is 2.4 mW     

Pulse operation and threshold characteristics of 1.55-μmInAlGaAs-InAlAs VCSELs

All-monolithic air-post index-guided vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers have been demonstrated under pulsed electrical injection at room temperature. The structure grown in single step by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition employs InP lattice matched InAlAs/InAlGaAs Bragg mirrors and a 2λ-thick periodic gain active region with 15 InGaAs quantum wells (QWs). We report threshold current characteristics of these devices grown on a 2-in wafer with wide emission wavelength range of 1.51~1.59 μm. For the devices larger than 30-μm in diameter, we found the minimum threshold current density of ~2.93 kA/cm² at the emission wavelength of 1.57 μm, corresponding to about 20 nm wavelength offset between photoluminescence peak of InGaAs QWs and resonant cavity wavelength     

Low-threshold oxide-confined GaInNAs long wavelength verticalcavity lasers

We report, for the first time, room temperature continuous-wave (CW) operation of GaInNAs vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diodes emitting at a wavelength of 1.2 μm and grown all-epitaxially in a single step on a GaAs substrate. Oxide-apertured devices demonstrated CW threshold currents as low as 1 mA, slope efficiency above 0.045 W/A, and thermal impedance of 1.24 K/mW. Larger sized devices exhibited a pulsed threshold current density of 2-2.5 kA/cm² and slope efficiency above 0.09 W/A     

High-power and highly reliable 780 nm band AlGaAs laser diodes withrectangular ridge structure

A record light output power of 240 mW has been achieved for the 780 nm band AlGaAs laser diodes by using a rectangular ridge structure. The laser diodes have been operated for >1000 h at 60°C under 150 mW pulsed operation     

High efficiency submilliamp vertical cavity lasers with intracavitycontacts

Contacts have been made to p- and n-type layers on opposite sides of the active region within the cavity of an InGaAs vertical cavity surface emitting laser. The two concentric ring contacts allow all electrical connections on and emission from the top surface of a semi-insulating GaAs substrate. The design includes a novel current leveling layer to minimize current crowding effects. A high external quantum efficiency of 46% has been measured with maximum output powers up to 6 mW for a 15 μm diameter device and threshold currents of 0.72 mA for a 7 μm diameter laser     

AlGaInP microcavity light-emitting diodes at 650 nm on Gesubstrates

We demonstrate microcavity light emitting diodes (MCLEDs) emitting at 650 nm on Ge substrates. Ge has the advantage of lower cost and higher strength compared to GaAs substrates. The multi-quantum well microcavity devices consisted of AlGaAs-based distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) mirrors, AlGaInP active material with an additional 5-μm p-Al_0.55Ga_0.45As current spreading layer on top of the p-DBR. A maximum external quantum efficiency of 4.35% and an optical power higher than 5 mW was obtained for a device with 200-μm diameter. The results indicate the potential use of MCLEDs on Ge for visible LEDs