Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers integrated with microlens arrays

Summary form only given. The high contrast ratio and planar emission geometry of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) makes them attractive for application as sources in interconnection applications. As part of work on a Tbit/s free-space optoelectronic interconnect we have fabricated top-emitting VCSELs in 8/spl times/8 arrays, emitting at 960 nm wavelength. As part of the project, we have integrated refractive microlens arrays with VCSELs to reduce their output divergence to match our system requirement.