Aperture scattering effects in oxide confined VCSELs: analytic cavity mode profiles and experimental near-field comparisons

Summary form only given. Microcavities with small features, such as oxide apertures and etched mesa edges, suffer wide angle scattering that cannot be treated by paraxial propagation or by lens-like phase shifts. We present a systematic treatment using the Born approximation in the vector Maxwell equations. The total scattered power and its scaling on the aperture geometry are obtained analytically. For paraxial incoming cavity modes, as is the case in VCSEL cavities, the scattered radiation constitutes a complete loss, of negligible coupling to other paraxial modes.