Nitride VCSEL design for continuous-wave operation of higher-order optical modes

Anticipated performance of possible designs of nitride vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) has been analyzed and compared with the aid of an advanced 3D optical–thermal–electrical self-consistent simulation. It has been revealed in the simulation that, to achieve room-temperature (RT) continuous-wave (CW) VCSEL threshold operation, uniformity of both carrier-concentration and temperature-increase distributions within VCSEL active regions are equally important. Besides, mostly because of problems with an effective confinement of an optical field in a radial direction, RT CW lasing in standard nitride VCSELs is usually easier to achieve on higher-order transverse modes than on lower-order ones. Therefore, a novel design of nitride VCSELs with double (annular and central dot) p-side contacts has been intentionally constructed to enhance an excitation of low-threshold high-order transverse optical modes. Anticipated RT CW performance characteristics of the novel design have been proved to be definitely more promising than those of other possible configurations of nitride VCSELs. In particular, our calculations have confirmed that RT CW lasing is possible in this new nitride VCSEL. Besides, this device has been found to be less sensitive (than other nitride VCSELs) to possible crystal imperfections created around an active region while high-resistive areas are formed. PACS 42.55.Px; 85.30.De; 85.60.Jb     

Cascade nitride VCSEL designs with tunnel junctions

The performance of various possible designs of 400-nm nitride vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) has been analyzed with the aid of an advanced three-dimensional (3D) thermal-electrical-optical-gain self-consistent threshold simulation. It has been demonstrated that it is practically impossible to reach fundamental-mode operation in nitride VCSELs of the traditional design with two ring contacts. To enhance this desired operation, the uniformity of current injection into VCSEL active regions should be dramatically improved. Therefore, we have focused our research on designs with tunnel junctions and/or a semitransparent contact. In particular, it has been proved that a design with two cascading active regions, two tunnel junctions and a semitransparent contact may offer the most promising room-temperature performance characteristics for both pulse and continuous-wave operations. In particular, this design offers high mode selectivity with a distinct fundamental transverse mode domination. The simulations also reveal that the thickness and localization of the semitransparent contact, as well as the localization of active regions and tunnel junctions, are crucial for successful construction design. PACS 42.55.Px; 85.30.De; 85.60.Jb     

Enhanced single-fundamental LP01 mode operation of 650-nm GaAs-based GaInP/AlGaInP quantum-well VCSELs

Minimal optical attenuation of plastic (polymer) optical fibres (POFs) corresponds to the 650-nm wavelength. Currently the GaInP/AlGaInP quantum-well (QW) oxide-confined (OC) vertical-cavity surface-emitting diode lasers (VCSELs) are undoubtedly the laser devices most suited to be used in 650-nm POF optical communication, for which the stable single-fundamental-mode LP₀₁ emission (SFM) is definitely the one most desired. In the present paper, the comprehensive fully self-consistent VCSEL model is used to examine mode selectivity of the above VCSELs. An increase in the VCSEL active-region diameter leads to a gradual modification of the current injection into this region and subsequent carrier radial diffusion within it before their recombination, which is followed by an essential transformation of active-region optical-gain profiles deciding upon an excitation of successive transverse modes. In standard arsenide OC VCSELs, SFM operation is usually limited to relatively small active regions. But for a room-temperature continuous-wave operation of the GaInP/AlGaInP VCSELs, the fundamental LP₀₁ mode remains surprisingly the lowest-threshold one up to relatively large active regions of 9-μm diameters. Nevertheless, in such VCSELs, thresholds of many LP modes become very similar to one another, which leads to their relatively poor mode selectivity and an unwanted multi-mode operation for higher output powers.     

Comparative analysis of lasing performance of oxide-confined and proton-implanted vertical-cavity surface-emitting diode lasers

The comprehensive optical-electrical-thermal-recombination self-consistent VCSEL model is used to compare the performance of oxide-confined (OC) and proton-implanted (PI) VCSELs and to optimise their structures. Generally index-guided (IG) OC VCSELs demonstrate lower lasing thresholds whereas both gain-guided (GG) OC and PI ones manifest much better mode selectivity. Therefore, their either low-threshold IG or mode-selective GG versions may be intentionally used for different VCSEL applications. Lasing thresholds of OC IG VCSELs have been found to be very sensitive to the exact localisation of their thin oxide apertures, which should be shifted as close as possible towards the anti-node position. PI VCSELs, on the other hand, are simpler and cheaper in their manufacturing than OC ones. Although lower threshold currents are manifested by PI VCSELs with very thick implanted regions, lower threshold powers are achieved in these devices with much thicker upper unaffected layer used for the radial current flow from the ring contact towards the laser axis. Paradoxically poor thermal properties of PI VCSELs enable lower lasing thresholds of slightly detuned devices. To conclude, cheaper and mode-selective PI VCSELs may be used instead of OC ones in many of their applications provided ambient temperatures and laser outputs are not too high.     

注入电流引起质子轰击VCSEL中的模式竞争

为了分析质子轰击垂直腔面发射激光器(VCSEL)中注入电流引起的激光模式竞争过程,在三维空间中对VCSEL激射后光电热进行了研究。给出仿真光电热的方程之后,在室温连续工作条件下,对电流孔半径r为4μm、阈值电流Ith为4.5 m A的VCSEL进行自洽求解。当注入电流Iin分别为5.0,5.5,6.0 m A时,得到了对应的外加电压和输出光功率,并绘制了VCSEL的电势、注入电流、载流子、光场和热场的空间分布,给出了连续工作下输出光功率随注入电流变化的曲线。仿真结果表明:随着注入VCSEL中的电流增加,电流密度增大,激光的横向基模和横向一阶模式同时增强。横向一阶模式增加的强度及扩展的范围大于横向基模,激光输出能量逐渐向横向一阶模式过渡,横向模式竞争的同时产生载流子空间烧孔,因此在电流孔半径r≥4μm的VCSEL中,连续工作激光模式不稳定。     

Influences of the Current Transverse Profile on the Transverse Mode Competition of VCSELs Diodes

A spatially independent model of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) is derived by integrating the spatially dependent rate equations over the cross section of the cavity of a VCSEL. The angular and radial non-uniformities of the injection current are taken into account. The well-known LP modes of a weakly-guiding cylindrical waveguide are employed to describe the transverse modal structure in the VCSEL cavity. This model is solved in a self-consistent way by using the 4th order Runge-Kutta method. The dependence of transverse mode competition on the current intensity, the angular and radial non-uniformities of the injection current, and the geometrical parameters of the electrical contact are thoroughly investigated and analyzed. The results are useful to the optimum design of the optical transverse modal structure of VCSELs.     

Thermal aspects of designing CW-operated nitride VCSELs

A room-temperature (RT) continuous-wave (CW) operation of possible nitride vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) is considered in the present paper using a simple VCSEL simulation to give some essential guidelines for their proper designing. It is revealed that a substrate material has a critical influence on a possibility of reaching RT CW thresholds which practically excludes currently used sapphire substrates of relatively low thermal conductivity from this application. SQW nitride VCSELs are found to be very sensitive to an increase in temperature, which is followed by their inappropriate CW-operation characteristics. A moderate increase in a number of quantum wells in VCSEL active regions significantly improves their CW achievements, i.e. decreases RT CW thresholds as well as considerably widens their CW threshold ranges.     

On the thermal resistance of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Thermal properties of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are studied using their comprehensive, three-dimensional, self-consistent, thermal-electrical simulation. The thermal resistance versus operation current relation is found to be completely different for two basic VCSEL configurations, i.e. for proton-implanted top-surface-emitting lasers (top-emitting VCSELs) and etched-well lasers (bottom-emitting VCSELs). The above fact is explained using a concept of the average centre of heat generation within a laser volume and its shift with an increase in an operation current. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Towards the transverse mode-locking of oxide-confined VCSELs

We have investigated the lasing modes of oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs). The individual Laguerre–Gaussian modes have been spectrally and spatially resolved with scanning confocal microscope with time resolution of 4 ps. Subject to the injection of ultrafast laser pulses, the VCSEL showed irregular pulsed emission which indicates the potential for transverse mode-locking of the VCSEL.     

Influence of polarization mode competition on the synchronization of two unidirectionally coupled vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We analyze theoretically the effect of polarization mode competition on the synchronization of two unidirectionally coupled vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). Chaos in the master laser is induced by delayed optical feedback, and the slave laser is subject to isotropic optical injection from the master VCSEL. We show that the synchronization quality can be enhanced when the chaotic regime in the master VCSEL involves both fundamental orthogonal linearly polarized modes.     

Mode-Stabilized Operation in a Microlens-Integrated 980 nm Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser

Microlens-integrated 980 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) were fabricated and their mode-stabilized operations investigated. A stable single fundamental transverse mode operation in the microlens-integrated VCSEL was observed. Numerical modal calculations accurately explain the effects of the microlens on mode stabilization.     

Thermal properties and wavelength analysis of telecom oriented photonic-crystal VCSELs

Results of the self-consistent comprehensive analysis of a room-temperature operation of InP-based 1300-nm AlInGaAs photonic-crystal (PhC) VCSELs are presented. In particular, an influence of PhC parameters on thermal effects within VCSEL volume and its emission wavelength are analysed. The PhC has been found to introduce a number of opposite effects including a possible light leakage through PhC holes. From one side, PhC holes make more difficult heat-flux extraction from VCSEL volume leading to higher temperature increases within it. But, from the other side, a properly manufactured PhC creates an efficient radial confinement mechanism for VCSEL radiation field. It enhances an interaction between the field and the active-region carriers leading to a decrease in both the VCSEL lasing threshold and temperature increases. Seemingly both effects may similarly affect VCSEL operation, but our analysis revealed, that thermal properties of the PhC VCSEL are mainly dependent on an efficient confinement of its radiation field within the active region impeding a mode leakage through PhC holes, whereas an importance of deterioration of heat-flux extraction from VCSEL volume is much less essential. The wavelength shift induced by a change of PhC parameters has been found not to exceed 4×10⁻³ μm.     

多横模垂直腔面发射激光器及其波长特性

基于氧化限制型内腔接触垂直腔面发射激光器(VCSEL) 结构设计, 研究了VCSEL的多横模分布及其模式波长分裂特性与氧化孔径尺寸、形状的关系. 在实验基础上, 通过建立有效折射率模型, 并利用标量亥姆霍兹方程的迭代算法理论, 分别对椭圆形氧化孔径和圆形氧化孔径VCSEL的横向模式特性进行模拟研究, 计算得到不同形状孔径的多横模光场分布情况, 同时测量得到高阶横模多频输出光谱. 研究发现, 椭圆氧化孔形状不仅影响横模分布特性, 还会导致每个模式的波长产生分裂, 分裂值可达0.037 nm. 同时, 随着氧化孔径的增大, 波长分裂影响会逐渐减小, 直至趋近于圆形氧化孔径的分布特性. 研究结果为进一步实现氧化限制型VCSEL的多横模锁定提供了有益参考和借鉴.     

Current spreading modification to enhance single-fundamental-mode VCSEL operation at higher temperatures

Continuous-wave (CW) performance of modern oxide-confined (OC) vertical-cavity surface-emitting diode lasers (VCSELs) at room and elevated temperatures is investigated with the aid of the comprehensive fully self-consistent optical-electrical-thermal-gain model. A standard OC GaInNAs/GaAs double-quantum-well VCSEL emitting the 1.3-μm radiation is used as a typical modern VCSEL structure. The oxide aperture is placed at the anti-node position of an optical standing wave within a VCSEL cavity. The desired single-fundamental-mode (SFM) operation has been found to be expected only in VCSELs equipped with relatively small active regions of diameters equal or smaller than 10 μm. Therefore a proton implantation used as an radial additional confinement of the current spreading from the upper annular contact towards the centrally located active region is proposed and its impact on the VCSEL performance is investigated. The above structure modification has been found to enable a radical improvement in the VCSEL performance. In particular, in this case, the SFM VCSEL operation is possible even in VCSELs with quite large active regions and for much wider ambient-temperature range than in the standard OC VCSELs.     

Tunable single-mode fiber-VCSEL using an intracavity polymer microlens

We report a tunable, single-mode vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) format suitable for array operation, power scaling, fiber coupling, and operation in isolated environments such as those required by atom optics. The devices are fiber VCSELs, consisting of a semiconductor gain and mirror structure separated from a mirror-coated optical fiber by an air (or vacuum) gap. The gain structure has polymer microlenses fabricated on its surface, of characteristics suitable to focus the oscillating mode on both cavity mirrors, ensuring stable fundamental mode emission and high fiber coupling efficiency. We demonstrate such devices in continuous-wave operation at 1.03 microm at room temperature, with a single-mode tuning range of 13 nm, laser threshold as low as 2.5 mW, and a maximum fiber-coupled output power of 10 mW.     

Numerical characterization of time delay signature in chaotic vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with optical feedback

We have discussed numerically the characterization of time delay (TD) signature in a chaotic vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) subject to optical feedback, where the results for polarization-preserved optical feedback (PPOF) and polarization-rotated optical feedback (PROF) are presented comparatively. It is found that, when the feedback strength is moderate, TD signature can be retrieved successfully by analyzing the total intensity, intensities of x-linearly polarized (x-LP) mode, and y-LP mode in a VCSEL with PPOF; while for PROF case, the intensity amplitude peaks in autocorrelation function (ACF)/delayed mutual information (DMI) of the two orthogonal LP modes are located at multiple values of TD. Furthermore, the influence of the feedback strength and time delay has been investigated. The results show that, a further increase of the feedback strength (roughly>40 ns^?1) leads to the successful identification of the TD signature in the two LP mode intensities of VCSELs with PROF. It is also observed that the estimation of TD depends significantly on the value of the spin–flip relaxation rate (γ_s). For low relaxation rates the TD signature could be much easier to be revealed by the two LP modes than that for large values of relaxation rate in VCSELs with PROF. Finally the influence of injection current and the device linear anisotropies is investigated, and the results of TD estimation are confirmed by calculating permutation entropy (PE).     

Chaos synchronization and communication of the polarization modes for two unidirectionally coupled vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We theoretically investigate the synchronization performance of the polarization modes of two unidirectionally coupled vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), where the master VCSEL subjects to polarization-preserved optical feedback and the slave VCSEL subjects to polarization-preserved optical injection. We demonstrate that high synchronization can be achieved between corresponding polarization components of the master laser and the slave laser. We also analyze the influence of the internal mismatched parameters on the synchronization performance. Furthermore, this system is used to dual-channel communication and the different transmitted digital information is respectively recovered at each polarization branch of the slaver laser successfully with the encryption scheme of chaos masking (CM). The results open an opportunity for multichannel chaotic communication by utilizing different polarization components in single-mode or multi-transverse-mode VCSELs.     

光反馈诱发长波长垂直腔面发射激光器低功耗偏振开关

基于扩展的自旋反转模型,对光反馈诱发下长波长垂直腔面发射激光器中的低功耗偏振开关进行了理论研究.研究表明:长波长垂直腔面发射激光器在自由运行下未能获得的偏振开关现象,可以通过引入中等强度的偏振旋转光反馈来实现.对比强弱两种不同的线性色散效应,发现了一些有趣的现象:弱线性色散条件下更易于在低注入电流下获得偏振开关,并且产生偏振开关所需的反馈强度具有更大的调控范围;强色散效应中未能始终获得偏振开关,会出现两模共存区,并且偏振开关出现的注入电流值较高.同时,观察到的偏振模跳变和多偏振开关现象类似于短波长垂直腔面发射激光器,因而证实这两类激光器在偏振开关的本质规律上是相似的.此外,还对长波长垂直腔面发射激光器不易在低注入电流下获得偏振开关的原因进行了分析,并给出了合理的解释.     

Novel single-transverse-mode control of VCSELs with dielectric mode filter

We establish a novel method of controlling the transverse modes of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers(VCSELs)to achieve 1 mW single-fundamental-mode lasing. A dielectric mode filter is installed on top of the VCSEL. The dielectric layer(SiO_2) is deposited and patterned to modify the mirror reflectivity across the oxide aperture via antiphase reflections.This mode selection is nondestructive and universally applicable for other structures under single transverse mode. Destructive etching techniques(dry/wet) or epitaxial regrowth are also not required. This method simplifies the preparation process and improves the repeatability of the device. Measurements show that under continuous-wave current injection, the side-mode suppression ratio exceeds 30 dB.     

Stable single-mode operation of VCSELs with a mode selective aperture

We have developed single-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSELs) with a mode selective aperture (MSA) in the DBR mirror that exhibits a high-order transverse-mode filtering effect. The VCSELs with an MSA were fabricated using standard intracavity-contacted VCSEL processes without any additional steps resulting from the simultaneous formation of the MSA and current aperture via a single-step oxidation. The VCSELs fabricated with a current aperture and MSA diameter of 5 and 7 μm, respectively, exhibited a stable single-mode operation with a side mode suppression ratio of over 35 dB and a divergence angle below 10° for the entire drive current range. PACS 42.55.Px; 85.35.Be