Polarization selection in birefringent vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers

Summary form only given. We present numerical calculations that demonstrate that small refraction index anisotropies can select the polarization of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). These calculations are based in a model that considers the effect of spatial hole burning in the device. We study the polarization of the fundamental transverse mode in a weak index-guided cylindrical VCSEL. Because of the effect of birefringence the orthogonal polarization states have different transverse intensity profiles, and hence different modal gains, which can lead to preferential excitation of a specific polarization.