Commercial applications of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

Summary form only given, as follows. Since the first demonstration of room temperature continuous wave operation about 10 years ago, vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) have made significant inroads into commercial realization predominantly in the area of data communications. In 1996, several companies introduced a new generation of fiber optic products based on VCSEL technology. First devices at 850 nm wavelength are now in volume production and are being used for gigabit rate, multimode fiber transceivers for the ANSI Fiber Channel and Gigabit Ethernet IEEE 802.3 standards. VCSELs offer unique advantages over their edge-emitting counterparts in several ways. These include their low-cost (LED-like) manufacturability, on wafer testability, low current operation and their array integrability. As data rates continue to increase, VCSELs (due to their small mode volume) offer the advantage of being able to provide the highest modulation bandwidth per milliamp of modulation current. We review some of the current commercial applications of VCSEls from 650 nm to 1300 nm. Applications ranging from data communications to laser printing are discussed. We also discuss some of the outstanding issues that limit the commercial use of VCSELs.