Self focusing in vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diodes

Author

Wilson, G.C. ; Kuchta, D.M. ; Walker, J.D. ; Smith, J.S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., California Univ., Berkeley, CA, USA

fYear

1993

fDate

15-18 Nov 1993

Firstpage

542

Lastpage

543

Abstract

High multimode CW powers have been achieved from vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diodes (VCSEL´s). However, due to the problems of thermal lensing and spatial hole burning, single mode powers have been limited to several mW. We show experimentally and with a simple model that, in weakly index guided VCSEL´s, self focusing causes the fundamental mode width to decrease with increasing power in the mode, resulting in a rapid transition to multimode operation and limiting the maximum single fundamental mode power

Keywords

laser modes; optical focusing; optical hole burning; optical self-focusing; semiconductor lasers; surface emitting lasers; fundamental mode; index guided VCSELs; multimode CW powers; self focusing; single mode powers; spatial hole burning; thermal lensing; vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diodes; Diode lasers; Equations; Gallium arsenide; Laser modes; Optical refraction; Spontaneous emission; Stimulated emission; Surface emitting lasers; Thermal lensing; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Annual Meeting, 1993. LEOS '93 Conference Proceedings. IEEE

Conference_Location

San Jose, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1263-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/LEOS.1993.379302

Filename

379302