In this paper, we demonstrate for the first time the far-field experimental results and the linewidth characteris- tics for widely tunable surface-micromachined micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) vertical-cavity surface- emitting lasers (VCSELs) operating at 1550 nm. The fundamental Gaussian mode emission is confirmed by optimizing the radius of curvature of top distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) membrane and by choosing an ap- propriate diameter of circular buried tunnel junctions (BTJs) so that only the fundamental Gaussian mode can sustain. For these VCSELs, a mode-hop free continuous tuning over 100 nm has already been demonstrated, which is achieved by electro-thermal tuning of the MEMS mirror. The fiber-coupled optical power of 2mW over the entire tuning range has been reported. The singlemode laser emission has more than 40 dB of side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR). The smallest linewidth achieved with these of MEMS tunable VCSELs is 98MHz which is one order of magnitude higher than that of fixed-wavelength VCSELs.

Date Published: 13 March 2013
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8639, Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers XVII, 86390H (13 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2004383

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8639:
Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers XVII
Kent D. Choquette; James K. Guenter, Editor(s)