A low-threshold and high-power oxide-confined 850-nm AlInGaAs strained quantum-well vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser

A low-threshold and high-power oxide-confined 850-nm AlInGaAs strained quantum-well （QW） vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser （VCSEL） based on an intra-cavity contacted structure is fabricated. A threshold current of 1.5 mA for a 22 μm oxide aperture device is achieved, which corresponds to a threshold current density of 0.395 kA/cm2. The peak output optical power reaches 17.5 mW at an injection current of 30 mA at room temperature under pulsed opera- tion. While under continuous-wave （CW） operation, the maximum power attains 10.5 mW. Such a device demonstrates a high characteristic temperature of 327 K within a temperature range from -12°C to 96 °C and good reliability under a lifetime test. There is almost no decrease of the optical power when the device operates at a current of 5 mA at room temperature under the CW injection current.

Polarization-Stable 980 nm Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers with Diamond-Shaped Oxide Aperture

Polarization-stable 980 nm oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with 3 μm diamond-shaped aper- ture are fabricated by comprehensively utilizing the anisotropic properties of wet etching and wet nitrogen oxida- tion of Ⅲ-Ⅴ semiconductor materials. Polarization-stable operation along the major axis of the diamond-shaped oxide aperture with 11 dB orthogonal polarization suppression ratio is achieved in a temperature range of 15-55℃ from the threshold to 4 mA.

Graded index profiles and loss-induced single-mode characteristics in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with petal-shape holey structure

The 850-nm oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with petal-shape holey structures are presented. An area-weighted average refractive index model is given to analyse their effective index profiles, and the graded index distribution in the holey region is demonstrated. The index step between the optical aperture and the holey region is obtained which is related merely to the etching depth. Four types of holey vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with different parameters are fabricated as well as the conventional oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser. Compared with the conventional oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser without etched holes, the holey vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser possesses an improved beam quality due to its graded index distribution, but has a lower output power, higher threshold current and lower slope efficiency. With the hole number increased, the holey vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser can realize the single-mode operation throughout the entire current range, and reduces the beam divergence further. The loss mechanism is used to explain the single-mode characteristic, and the reduced beam divergence is attributed to the shallow etching. High coupling efficiency of 86% to a multi-mode fibre is achieved for the single-mode device in the experiment.

Characteristics of selective oxidation during the fabrication of vertical cavity surface emitting laser

Taking into account oxidation temperature, N2 carrier gas flow, and the geometry of the mesa structures this paper investigates the characteristics of selective oxidation during the fabrication of the vertical cavity surface emitting laser （VCSEL） in detail. Results show that the selective oxidation follows a law which differs from any reported in the literature. Below 435℃ selective oxidation of Al0.98Ga0.02As follows a linear growth law for the two mesa structures employed in VCSEL. Above 435℃ approximately increasing parabolic growth is found, which is influenced by the geometry of the mesa structures. Theoretical analysis on the difference between the two structures for the initial oxidation has been performed, which demonstrates that the geometry of the mesa structures does influence on the growth rate of oxide at higher temperatures.

单氧化限制垂直腔面发射激光器的阈值

使用有限差分和模式跟踪方法对垂直腔面发射激光器(VCSELs)中光、电、热场耦合方程自洽数值求解,设计了其低阈值结构.给出了限制电流孔径分别为1μm、2μm3、μm和6μm的阈值电流密度、载流子密度、基模光场和热场的空间分布,得到了单氧化限制VCSELs中注入阈值电流随限制孔径变化曲线.结果表明,在2～6μm范围内与实验结果达到一致,并且单氧化限制VCSELs中过大和过小的电流限制孔径都不利于降低激光器阈值,进而发现了最佳电流限制半径及最小阈值电流.

Wet nitrogen oxidation technology and its anisotropy influence on VCSELs

Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers（VCSELs） are widely used in optical communications and optical interconnects due to their advantages of low threshold, low power consumption and so on. Wet nitrogen oxidation technology, which utilizes H20 molecules to oxidize the Al;Ga;As, is used for electrical and optical mode confinement. In this paper, the effects of oxidation time, oxidation temperature and oxidation anisotropy on the oxidation rate are explored and demonstrated. The ratio of oxidation rate on [0-11] to [011] crystal orientation is defined as oxidation anisotropy coefficient, which decreases with the increase of oxidation temperature and oxidation time. In order to analyze the effect of the oxidation anisotropy on the VCSEL performance, an oxide-aperture of the VCSELs with two difference shapes is designed and then fabricated. The static performance of these fabricated VCSELs has been measured,whose threshold current ratio ～0.714 is a good agreement with that of the theoretical calculation value ～0.785. Our research on wet nitrogen oxidation and its anisotropy serves as an important reference in the batch fabrication of large-area VCSELs.