Single-Lobe Single-Wavelength Lasing in Ultrabroad-Area Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers Based on the Integrated Filter Concept

We have studied broad-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers grown in the antiwaveguiding approach (AVCSELs). The AVCSEL-type devices were fabricated in the ridge stripe geometry with openings in the top contact layer. Surface lasing was realized and evaluated for the devices with and without the integrated absorber section, acting as a selective filter for the emission modes propagating at finite tilt angle with respect to the normal to the surface (F-AVCSEL). It was found that the conventional AVCSEL device lases in high-order excited modes, tilted with respect to the normal to the surface, while lower order modes evolve at higher current densities causing a dramatic broadening of the emission spectrum. On the contrary, the F-AVCSEL emission is composed of a single spectral feature, which remains hardly affected up to the highest current densities >10 kA/cm². The far-field pattern is composed of a single zero-angle lobe with a beam divergence defined by the size of the opening in the top contact. No spectral features due to parasitic high-order modes were observed. The Gaussian-type single-wavelength surface-emitting lasing with an output power of 70 mW was realized in all-epitaxial wavelength-selective filter concept.