High-Speed Modulation of Index-Guided Implant-Confined Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers

Author

Chen, Chen ; Leisher, Paul O. ; Kuchta, Daniel M. ; Choquette, Kent D.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL

Volume

15

Issue

3

fYear

2009

Firstpage

673

Lastpage

678

Abstract

An etched photonic crystal (PhC) or holey wedge structure induces index confinement into 850-nm implant-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) to engineer the spatial overlap between the optical mode and laser gain for improved high-speed operation and reduced relative intensity noise. Large-signal operation of 12.5 Gb/s is achieved with a single transverse-mode PhC VCSEL and 15 Gb/s with a single transverse-mode holey VCSEL. An excessive current diffusion effect is found when the difference between the electrical and optical diameter is large (>4 mum), which limits the large-signal modulation of single-mode VCSELs. The design rules for optimal single transverse-mode high-speed PhC and holey VCSELs are extracted from a parametric study of their large-signal modulation characteristics.

Keywords

etching; high-speed optical techniques; laser beams; laser cavity resonators; laser modes; optical modulation; photonic crystals; semiconductor lasers; surface emitting lasers; bit rate 12.5 Gbit/s; bit rate 15 Gbit/s; current diffusion effect; etched photonic crystal; high-speed modulation; holey wedge structure; implant-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser; laser gain; single transverse-mode PhC VCSEL; wavelength 850 nm; Etching; High speed optical techniques; Laser modes; Laser noise; Noise reduction; Optical modulation; Optical noise; Photonic crystals; Surface emitting lasers; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers; High-speed modulation; semiconductor laser; vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1077-260X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSTQE.2009.2016115

Filename

5068464