Polarization characteristics of index-guided surface-emitting lasers with tilted pillar structure

We report precise control of polarization states for index-guided surface-emitting lasers by tilted-etching of the laser pillar. Circular laser pillars were etched by tilting the substrate toward ~110 or ~11~0 direction with an angle of 15/spl deg/-30/spl deg/ using reactive ion beam etching. For the laser device with a diameter of 7-10 μm, we observed selectivity of the polarization state. We found a dominant polarization with an electric field perpendicular to the tilted direction of laser pillar. The maximum orthogonal polarization suppression ratio was about 25 dB. The selectivity of polarization in the tilted laser pillar devices is interpreted to be originated from the difference in optical losses for the two waves polarized to ~110 and ~11~0 directions.