Microcavity optoelectronic devices

Over the past few years vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers and modulators have emerged as viable devices with interesting performance characteristics. One of their key features is that they occupy very little substrate area as compared to most optoelectronic devices. As a result, they also require relatively low drive powers. These aspects together with their suitability for wafer-scale fabrication and testing make them appear suitable for low-cost production as well as high performance. In this paper we shall review recent progress on these devices with emphasis on the vertical-cavity laser. Vertical-cavity lasers with cw powers exceeding 110 mW, overall efficiencies exceeding 17%, operating temperatures exceeding 120°C, and output powers insensitive to temperature over ranges exceeding 60°C will be illustrated. In addition, devices have operated cw down to diameters of 2 μm, including a 6 μm device that delivers nearly 2 milliwatts of single-mode output power with greater than 30 dB of spurious mode suppression. In the vertical-cavity modulator area, reflective asymmetric Fabry-Perot structures have given up to 37 GHz of modulation bandwidth. Insertion losses are about 3 dB, and required voltage swings for 100:1 modulation are ~±2V