Investigation on anisotropy of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We have studied the spontaneous emission of polarized excitons in the GaInP /AlGaInP vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers from 50 K to room temperat ure. It is observed that the spontaneous emission peak enters and leaves th e resonant regime. At the resonant regime, the emission intensities of the perpendicularly and horizontally polarized excitons are enhanced and their proportions are different from that in nonresonant regime. These experiment al results are explained by the dressed exciton theory of the semiconductor microcavity device. Based on this theory, the intensity enhancement and th e polarization dependence are understood as cooperative emission and the mi crocavity anisotropy. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(0 0)05315-9].