Surface-grating VCSELs with dynamically stable light output polarization

It has been shown recently that the polarization of single- and multimode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) can be defined and stabilized very effectively with a monolithically integrated surface grating. Orthogonal polarization suppression ratios of 20 dB or more have been achieved even for transverse multimode devices. It has not been investigated in detail yet whether these lasers are also polarization stable under high-frequency modulation. We show that surface-grating VCSELs remain polarization stable for digital high-frequency modulation up to 10Gb/s, modulation amplitudes of up to 1.5 V_pp, and different modulation patterns. Under modulation, neither polarization-resolved time traces nor polarization-resolved spectra nor the power ratio of the two polarizations indicate a deterioration of the polarization properties compared to the static case.