Polarization Control of Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers by Utilizing Surface Plasmon Resonance

We demonstrate polarization control of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) to any desired directions by utilizing surface plasmon resonance at a metal nanohole array. A silver nanohole array is integrated on the p-type distributed Bragg reflector of an 850-nm AlGaAs-GaAs-based VCSEL. The metal nanohole array placed at rectangular lattices with orthogonally different two periods, one of which meets the resonaint condition, exhibits strong polarization preference in optical transmission. Integrated four VCSELs with different directions of the rectangular arrays of nanoholes demonstrate successful control of the polarization angles. The VCSELs are closely located onto a one chip so that the optical outputs are easily coupled to one optical fiber. The presented VCSEL array will open a new horizon of multi-input multi-output communication systems by using polarization multiplexing.