High power emission from red vertical cavity surface emitting laserarray

A parallel array of oxide-confined 676 nm vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) is demonstrated. 12 mW is emitted at 20°C from a six-element array covering a 90 μm diameter area. The individual apertures are thermally isolated, making the array scalable to higher powers. The maximum power is strongly dependent on both temperature and aperture size, with smaller apertures showing reduced thermal sensitivity