High speed reconfiguration of dual-purpose vertical cavity surface emitting laser/detector

Summary form only given. There is currently much interest in developing low cost optoelectronic transceiver units for application in the datacommunications market. A significant benefit lies in integrating the laser and detector. Another alternative is to create a single component that may operate either as a laser or a detector and may be reconfigured between the two modes of operation. For certain applications, such as in half-duplex links, fast switching of the device between emitting and detecting action is required. We present the first high-speed reconfiguration results of a conventional 850 nm VCSEL that is modified to operate as an efficient avalanche detector as well as a laser. The dual-purpose device has been created by etching across the whole aperture of a GaAs proton-implanted VCSEL.