Analysis of Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Semiconductor Lasers

We investigate AlGaAs vertical cavity surface emitting lasers for optical excitation and current modulation. The epitaxial Bragg reflectors of the lasers have a reflectivity of larger than 98.9%. For optical excitation the threshold power is 18 mW and the one-sided differential quantum efficiency 33%. Single longitudinal and transversal mode emission is observed up to 10 mW cw output power. Current modulation if shown to be a efficient as optical excitation. The devices are well suited for two-dimensional array formation