MODELING THE INTERPLAY OF THERMAL EFFECTS AND TRANSVERSE-MODE BEHAVIOR IN NATIVE-OXIDE-CONFINED VERTICAL-CAVITY SURFACE-EMITTING LASERS

We present a microscopically based vertical-cavity surface-emitting la ser (VCSEL) model that treats plasma and lattice heating self-consiste ntly and includes gain dispersion in a fashion facilitating the incorp oration of many-body effects. This model is used to investigate the in terplay of thermal effects and transverse mode behavior observed in re cent experiments with large-aperture selectively oxidized VCSELs. We c onfirm that the highly divergent single-mode emission seen experimenta lly at low ambient temperatures may be caused by a redshift of the cav ity resonance frequency relative to the quantum-well gain peak. Moreov er, due to the dependence of the gain spectrum on temperature our mode l qualitatively reproduces the measured increase of the dominant spati al scale of the low-temperature steady-state field patterns with pumpi ng. Finally, we demonstrate that spatial hole burning plays a signific ant role at larger ambient temperatures and explains the decrease of t he spatial wavelength with pumping, in agreement with the experiments. [S1050-2947(98)02410-X].