Single-transverse-mode 3.4-mW emission of oxide-confined 780-nm VCSEL's

The authors have fabricated oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with metal apertures exhibiting spatial mode filtering effect. Sing le-mode continuous-wave output is enhanced up to 3.4 mW by this effect for AlGaAs-based 780-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with a 3.5-mu m -diameter oxide aperture. From the numerical calculation, the round-trip lo ss difference between zeroth- and first order optical mode as a function of metal aperture size indicates that there is an optimum point for metal ape rture size, and 4-mu m metal aperture size is suitable for higher order mod e suppression of a 3.5-mu m oxide aperture device.