We present the design, technology and performances of a tunable Sb-based diode-pumped type-I quantum-well vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers emitting at 2.7μm. The half VCSEL structure was grown by MBE with quantum-well growth temperature of 440 °C. The sample was thermally annealed to optimize the QW gain design. We report on room-temperature continuous-wave laser with 0.17mW output power and low threshold incident pump intensity of 0.7kW/cm2 while pumping at 830nm with a commercial diode laser. The external cavity provides a circular TEM00 beam with a low divergence of 3.6°. The short mm-long optical cavity laser exhibits tunable single frequency operation, with a side mode suppression ratio 23 dB, a linewidth 4GHz and a linear light polarization. Thermal and optical properties are studied.

Date Published: 14 February 2012
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8242, Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VECSELs) II, 82420L (14 February 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.909355

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8242:
Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VECSELs) II
Anne C. Tropper, Editor(s)