We report on advances in the fabrication and performance of monolithic 850 nm, linearly polarized vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) incorporating a semiconductor surface grating at the outcoupling facet. Depending on the grating parameters, the light is polarized either parallel or perpendicular to the grating grooves. Deep-etched gratings enable complete polarization pinning even in directions that are 45 degrees off the preferred crystal axes. On the other hand, such devices can show strong side-lobes in the far-field which may limit the available output power for some applications. Shallow-etched VCSELs with almost undistorted far-fields deliver output powers as high as 29 mW with about 12 dB orthogonal polarization suppression ratio. A combination of surface relief and grating is used to increase the transverse single-mode output power while maintaining polarization stability.

Date Published: 8 September 2004
PDF: 15 pages
Proc. SPIE 5453, Micro-Optics, VCSELs, and Photonic Interconnects, (8 September 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.554945

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5453:
Micro-Optics, VCSELs, and Photonic Interconnects
Hugo Thienpont; Kent D. Choquette; Mohammad R. Taghizadeh, Editor(s)