FRESNEL ANALYSIS OF EFFECTIVE MIRROR REFLECTIVITY IN FOLDED-CAVITY INPLANE SURFACE-EMITTING LASERS

Inside-cavity diffraction loss resulting from unguided regions and 45- degrees internal total reflection mirror(s) is an important issue for fabricating folded-cavity in-plane surface-emitting lasers. In this le tter, a Fresnel plane-wave decomposition method was applied to analyze this problem for the first time. The effective reflectivity of an ang le-etched mirror was calculated for deviation of the etched angle and different lengths of the unguided region. The results offer design cri teria for fabricating folded-cavity surface-emitting lasers as well as other devices with angle-etched facet(s) for surface normal light cou pling.