Electrically steerable lasers using wide-aperture VCSELs

Author

Cohen, M.I. ; Allerman, A.A. ; Choquette, K.D. ; Jagadish, C.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. Mater. Eng., Australian Nat. Univ., Canberra, ACT, Australia

Volume

13

Issue

6

fYear

2001

fDate

6/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

544

Lastpage

546

Abstract

A wide-aperture vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser has been fabricated so as to enhance the transverse mode selection. It was found that the far field emission can be made to exhibit two distinct steerable beams. The laser beams may be steered from 30/spl deg/ away from the normal right up to normal emission by varying the driving current. The steering effect is a thermal effect as confirmed by transient waveform analysis. A two-channel switch was built with switching time between channels of 10 μs and crosstalk of greater than 18 dB.

Keywords

beam steering; laser beams; laser modes; laser variables measurement; optical crosstalk; optical fabrication; optical links; optical switches; semiconductor laser arrays; surface emitting lasers; 10 mus; channels; crosstalk; distinct steerable beams; driving current; electrically steerable lasers; fabrication; far field emission; laser beams; normal; normal emission; steering effect; switching time; thermal effect; transient waveform analysis; transverse mode selection; two-channel switch; wide-aperture VCSELs; wide-aperture vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser; Apertures; Crosstalk; Laser beams; Laser modes; Optical beams; Optical interconnections; Optical surface waves; Optical switches; Surface emitting lasers; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/68.924014

Filename

924014