Development of bottom-emitting 1300-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We present experimental results on the development of bottom-emitting GaInNAs vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) operating at wavelengths near 1300 nm. This development effort is based on the modification of oxide-apertured top-emitting structures to allow emission through the GaAs substrate. Similar device performance was seen in both the top- and bottom-emitting structures. Single-mode output powers (adjusted for substrate absorption) of /spl sim/0.75 mW, with threshold currents of 1.3 mA, were achieved with /spl sim/3.5-/spl mu/m aperture diameters. Larger multimode devices exhibited a maximum adjusted output power of 2.2 mW. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first bottom-emitting flip-chip compatible 1300-nm VCSELs fabricated with GaInNAs-GaAs active regions.     

Matrices of 960-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Matrices of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with individual addressing of elements and radiation output through a gallium arsenide substrate are implemented. Individual laser emitters with a current aperture diameter of 6–7 μm exhibit continuous-wave room-temperature lasing at a wavelength of 958–962 nm with threshold currents of 1.1–1.3 mA, differential efficiency of 0.5–0.8 mW/mA, and a maximum output power of 7.5–9 mW. The parameter variation of individual emitters within a matrix chip containing 5 × 7 elements does not exceed ±20%.     

Optical feedback in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Optical feedback in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser due to a fiber facet of varying position is studied in experiment and theory. Measured spectra and light-current curves show periodic variations in resonant wavelength, threshold current, differential quantum efficiency, and output power as a function of fiber position. Theoretical results were obtained using a 2 × 2 vector propagation matrix method which models the laser and fiber in a single structure and shows good agreement with experimental results. A novel method for determining the linewidth enhancement factor α by analyzing the wavelength variation as a function of fiber position is presented and a value of α = 2.8 was obtained     

650-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers: laser properties and reliability investigations

650-nm AlGaInP-AlGaAs-based oxide-confined VCSELs are investigated in dependence on the current aperture size. VCSELs with small aperture (a=5 /spl mu/m) have a maximum continuous-wave (CW) output power of about 1 mW at room temperature. They reach higher operating temperatures (T/sub max/=55/spl deg/C), have narrower beam profiles, less transverse modes, and a higher side mode suppression compared to large aperture VCSELs (a>13 /spl mu/m). The latter devices emit a CW-output power P=3 mW at 20/spl deg/C. Reliability tests of 655-nm devices show at 20/spl deg/C an output power of P/spl ap/0.4 mW over more than 1000 h and at 40/spl deg/C P/spl ap/0.1 mW over 500 h.     

1300-nm horizontal-cavity surface-emitting BH-DFB lasers for uncooled operation

We present a novel type of 1300-nm horizontal-cavity surface-emitting buried heterostructure distributed feedback (DFB) lasers showing high optical output power and uncooled direct modulation capability of 7.5 Gb/s. These lasers can be fabricated and tested using on-wafer techniques only, so the overall fabrication costs are considerably lower than with conventional edge-emitting DFB lasers.     

Polarization properties of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Polarization-state selection, polarization-state dynamics, and polarization switching of a quantum-well vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) for the lowest order transverse spatial mode of the laser is explored using a recently developed model that incorporates material birefringence, the saturable dispersion characteristic of semiconductor physics, and the sensitivity of the transitions in the material to the vector character of the electric field amplitude. Three features contribute to the observed linearly polarized states of emission: linear birefringence, linear gain or loss anisotropies, and an intermediate relaxation rate for imbalances in the populations of the magnetic sublevels. In the absence of either birefringence or saturable dispersion, the gain or loss anisotropies dictate stability for the linearly polarized mode with higher net gain; hence, switching is only possible if the relative strength of the net gain for the two modes is reversed. When birefringence and saturable dispersion are both present, there are possibilities of bistability, monostability, and dynamical instability, including switching by destabilization of the mode with the higher gain to loss ratio in favor of the weaker mode. We compare our analytical and numerical results with recent experimental results on bistability and switchings caused by changes in the injection current and changes in the intensity of an injected optical signal     

High-speed modulation of 850-nm intracavity contacted shallowimplant-apertured vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

GaAs-AlGaAs quantum-well (850 nn) vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, with lateral current injection and shallow implanted apertures, show small signal modulation bandwidths of at least 11 GHz and large signal data rates of at least 10 Gb/s. The devices achieved a maximum output power of 2.1 mW, with a threshold current and voltage of 1 mA and 1.71 V, respectively. The shallow implantation step provides photolithographically precise aperture formation (using O⁺ ions), for efficient lateral current injection into the quantum-well active region of the laser, from intracavity contacts. The device aperture was 7 μm in diameter, and the opening in the annular top contact was 13 μm in diameter. The optical spectrum showed several transverse modes     

光子晶体垂直腔面发射激光器特性研究

本文介绍了光子晶体垂直腔面发射激光器的制备工艺、工作原理、基本特性和研究进展,重点评述了光子晶体垂直腔面发射激光器的优良特性及应用前景.我们认为光子晶体垂直腔面发射激光器是一种新型的半导体激光器,它具有大出光孔径、较高的出光功率、稳定的单模、多芯传输等特点,而且具有优良的热特性和高速调谐特性,可在二维光信息处理的GaAs基近红外波段激光器、面阵集成等方面具有很大的应用潜力.     

Beam propagation model for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers:threshold properties

A novel beam propagating method model for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers is presented. The Bloch wave concept is used for wave propagation in the Bragg region, and the numerical model includes the structure of Bragg reflectors, carrier, and thermal effects. Based on this model the optical field in the cavity is calculated. The numerical results show that weak index guiding should be introduced to maintain the low threshold current property when the temperature difference between the center and edge is comparable with that of edge-emitting laser diodes, especially in the small contact case. The effects of the mismatch between the lasing wavelength and the gain peak and the reflectivity of the facet are investigated     

Degradation-robust 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers for 25Gb/s optical data transmission

Highly efficient fast vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) for the 850-nm spectral range, promising for the development of optical interconnections with a data transmission rate of 25 Gbit/s per channel, are fabricated and studied. Lasers with a selectively oxidized current aperture 6 μm in diameter demonstrate multimode lasing with a quantum efficiency of 35–45% and a threshold current of 0.5–0.7 mA in the temperature range 20–85°C. According to the results of small-signal frequency analysis, the maximum modulation frequency of the lasers exceeds 17 GHz, with the rate of its increase with current exceeding 9 GHz/mA^1/2, which provides VCSEL operation at a rate of 25 Gbit/s in the entire working temperature range. Endurance tests for 3000 h did not reveal any sudden degradation of the lasers. The optical power at working point and the threshold current changed relative to that at the beginning of the tests by no more than 5 and 10%, respectively.     

Mode-partition noise in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We present a numerical study of the effects of carrier diffusion and spatial hole-burning on the noise characteristics of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL's) under both single-mode and multimode operations. In the case of single-mode operation, VCSEL noise characteristics are similar to those of edge-emitting lasers except for a diffusion-induced damping of relaxation oscillations. Under multimode operation, VCSEL's exhibit low-frequency noise enhancement due to mode partition. However, depending on the spatial distributions of the transverse modes excited, the mode-partition noise characteristics can be quite different.     

Transverse-mode control of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Transverse-mode control of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) has been investigated. A theoretical model takes into account the distributions of carriers, optical field, and temperature. Using a method of finding self-consistent solutions for the carrier diffusion, optical field, and thermal conduction equations, we have studied the influence of current spreading, injected current density, gain-guided aperture, and window diameter on the transverse modes. The calculated results agree well with those of experiments and show that the transverse-mode evolution of VCSELs depends on the changes of gain and refractive index induced by carriers and heating; decreasing temperature rise and profile width, current spreading, and gain-guided aperture dimension, increasing homogeneity of the injected carriers at the lasing region, and decreasing window diameter are effective methods to suppress high-order transverse modes.     

Nonlinear dynamics of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

The dependence of the transient response of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) on its aperture size is investigated subject to direct current modulation and external optical feedback. It is shown that lasers with small aperture size suppress higher order bifurcations and chaos even under large-signal modulation and external optical feedback. Furthermore, the noise characteristics of VCSELs under the influence of external optical feedback are studied via the calculation of relative intensity noise. It is found that the level of external optical feedback for the onset of coherence collapse is high for devices with small aperture size. On the other hand, the small-signal response of lasers is also analyzed through the calculation of third-order harmonic distortion. It is shown that harmonic distortion is minimized in small devices. Therefore, VCSELs with small aperture size have better immunity to irregular response under direct current modulation and external optical feedback     

ESD-induced degradation of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

The sensitivity of proton implanted, vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) to electrostatic discharge (ESD) pulses is investigated under human body model test conditions. Rather low degradation threshold pulse amplitudes were observed in forward bias (+1500 V) as well as reverse bias (-800 V) step stress tests. Monitoring both the electrical and optical parameters of the VCSELs during ESD stress, it was found that in forward bias ESD stress tests the optical degradation precedes the electrical degradation     

Dynamic properties of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with improved polarization stability

We describe dynamic properties of rectangular etched post vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers designed for increased polarization stability. These lasers show polarization extinction ratios higher than 20 dB in CW and under high-speed large signal modulation. The high degree of polarization stability allows for error-free transmission in polarization selective free space optical links.     

Measurement of guiding effects in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Wave-guiding mechanisms in large area InGaAs-GaAs MQW vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) have been investigated using novel spatially and spectrally resolved measurements of spontaneous and stimulated emission. Carrier induced anti-guiding is found to be important despite the presence of other guiding mechanisms.     

Circuit model for multiple transverse mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

The modeling of multimode operation in vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diodes is difficult because spatial interaction between modes makes the problem very complex. In this paper, a novel circuit model is presented for such lasers, which is based on spatially dependent rate equations, and thus spatial hole burning and carrier diffusion are taken into account. These effects are studied in direct-modulated microwave vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers by showing linear and nonlinear simulation examples in both time and frequency domains.     

Design and fabrication technology for arrays for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

The design and fabrication technology for integrated arrays for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with bottom AlGaAs/GaAs semiconductor and top AlGaO/GaAs distributed Bragg reflectors is suggested. Arrays containing 8×8 lasers with an active region based on two InGaAs quantum wells were produced. Individual emitters with an oxidized aperture of 8–10 μm in diameter demonstrate cw lasing at 960–965 nm at room temperature, with a threshold current of 1.0–2.5 mA, external efficiency of up to 0.4 mW/mA, and a maximum output power of over 2 mW.     

High-speed characteristics of large-area single-transverse-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

The single transverse mode operation of VCSELs with low threshold current (I/sub th/) of 1.5 mA, slope efficiencies about 0.35 W/A, high optical output power of 3.8 mW and speed performance of 10 Gbit/s is reported. The laser has continuous-wave operation and employs oxygen implantation, MOCVD regrowth and selective oxidation on semi-insulating GaAs substrate.     

Frequency response of polarization switching in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We present an experimental study of the current-driven polarization modulation properties of VCSELs. In some VCSELs, abrupt polarization switching (PS) between two polarization modes is observed at a particular value of the pump current. We investigate the dynamics and the associated dominating time scales of PS as these features are strongly linked with the underlying physical mechanism causing the PS. To this end, we measure both for gain- and index-guided VCSELs the critical modulation amplitude necessary to steadily force PS back and forth across the PS point as a function of the modulation frequency. This yields the current-driven polarization modulation frequency response, which we compare with the thermal frequency response of the studied devices. The dynamic behavior turns out to be strikingly different for the different VCSEL types. Thermal effects only play a minor role in the PS in our index-guided VCSELs, while they really seem to lie at the origin of PS in the gain-guided VCSELs. By implementing this in a rate-equation based theoretical model, we are able to explain the peculiarities of the measured response curves and to reproduce the experimental findings.