Inside Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers: Extracting the Refractive Index From Spatial-Spectral Mode Images

Author

de Lange, V. ; Kuei Sun ; Gordon, R.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Victoria Univ., BC

Volume

43

Issue

3

fYear

2007

fDate

3/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

225

Lastpage

229

Abstract

We present a method to extract the internal effective refractive index of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) from its transverse mode images. High spatial and spectral resolution mode images of an oxide-guided VCSEL were obtained using an etalon filter and an imaging spectrometer. The refractive index and the oxide radius were extracted from the field intensity distribution and the spectral wavelength of the laser modes. The procedure was repeated at two different currents and both gave a refractive index step of 0.046 plusmn 0.006 with a 14.1-mum oxide diameter. With several degrees of freedom for error available in the refractive index extraction, this method may be extended to ion-implanted, photonic crystal, and noncircular devices

Keywords

image resolution; laser modes; laser variables measurement; optical filters; optical images; refractive index; semiconductor lasers; surface emitting lasers; VCSEL; etalon filter; imaging spectrometer; mode images; refractive index; spatial resolution; spectral resolution; vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser; Filters; High-resolution imaging; Image resolution; Laser modes; Photonic crystals; Refractive index; Spatial resolution; Spectroscopy; Surface emitting lasers; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers; Refractive index profile; spatial-spectral imaging; transverse modes; vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JQE.2006.890397

Filename

4084608