High-performance small vertical-cavity lasers: a comparison of measured improvements in optical and current confinement in devices using tapered apertures

Author

Hegblom, E.R. ; Margalit, N.M. ; Fiore, A. ; Coldren, L.A.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., California Univ., Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Volume

5

Issue

3

fYear

1999

Firstpage

553

Lastpage

560

Abstract

We analyze the scaling characteristics of the optical and current confinement for three different vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) structures with tapered apertures. The improvements in scaling have allowed devices with apertures <3 μm to have wall-plug efficiencies over 20% at output powers as low as 150 μW. The combination of low threshold (<200 μA), single modedness, and good wall-plug efficiency even at low output powers makes these devices excellent candidates for short distance (<1 m) interconnects within computers

Keywords

laser modes; optical interconnections; semiconductor optical amplifiers; surface emitting lasers; 150 muW; 20 percent; 200 muA; 3 mum; current confinement; good wall-plug efficiency; high-performance small vertical-cavity lasers; low output powers; low threshold; optical confinement; output powers; scaling characteristics; short distance optical computer interconnects; single modedness; tapered apertures; wall-plug efficiencies; Apertures; Fiber lasers; High speed optical techniques; Laser modes; Optical crosstalk; Optical losses; Optical scattering; Power generation; Surface emitting lasers; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1077-260X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/2944.788418

Filename

788418