General scaling laws for gain-guided vertical cavity lasers with distr
ibuted Bragg reflectors are introduced. The validity of these laws is
verified using a self-consistent calculation of transverse modes and p
ropagation constants for two-dimensional laser cavities. The definitio
n of Fresnel number is generalized to cavities with distributed mirror
s. We show that all of the resonator parameters-the threshold gain, th
e frequency spectrum, and the transverse mode patterns scale with the
ratio between the Fresnel number and the cold cavity finesse.