We report on the mode evolution of coupled dual-element laser arrays biased in the coherently coupled region, exploring both theoretical and experimental aspects. Utilizing a complex waveguide simulation, we identify two supermodes operating within the coherently coupled region. The formation of the supermodes leads to enhanced output power, visibility, and a photon-photon resonance frequency surpassing the carrier-photon resonance frequency. Such favorable attributes are facilitated by the formation of anti-guided cavities through current injection. Finally, we conduct a comparative analysis of mode characteristics under strong and weakly anti-guiding conditions to identify the impact on the supermode characteristics.
We show that coherent supermode emission is observable in hexagonal ring shaped 6 and 12 element photonic crystal VCSEL arrays under relatively short (~100ns) pulse operation with all array elements connected in parallel.
As the industry has focused on the high-volume manufacturing of VCSELs for applications in 3D sensing, other application areas for VCSELs have gone underserved. Dallas Quantum Devices is a boutique VCSEL company specializing in custom solutions. Several design, epitaxial, and process technologies have been used to create novel VCSEL designs for applications in data communications and illumination.
While time-of-flight applications have led to VCSEL arrays operating at currents measured in the amperes and producing very high aggregate powers, the current through each individual VCSEL aperture is not substantially higher than in many other applications. Driving a single VCSEL emitter of moderate size to extremely high currents requires specialized circuits and operation in a regime where thermal effects will not destroy it, meaning low duty cycles and pulse on-times measured in single-digit nanoseconds. In that regime traditional VCSEL performance and geometry scaling rules no longer apply and surprising behaviors emerge. We describe results for small area single-emitter 850-nm VCSELs designed for high power extraction operating at peak currents of several amperes. The electrooptical behaviors observed afford opportunities for VCSELs in nontraditional areas, but they may also indicate some previously unsuspected limitations.
Luke Graham, Hao Chen, Jonathan Cruel, James Guenter, Bobby Hawkins, Bobby Hawthorne, David Kelly, Alirio Melgar, Mario Martinez, Edward Shaw, Jim Tatum
Finisar has developed a line of high power, high efficiency VCSEL arrays. They are fabricated at 860nm as traditional P side up top emitting devices, leveraging Finisar’s existing VCSEL fab and test processes for low cost, high volume capability. A thermal camera is used to accurately measure temperature profiles across the arrays at a variety of operating conditions and further allowing development of a full reliability model. The arrays are shown to demonstrate wear out reliability suitable for a wide range of applications. Typical 1/e^2 beam divergence is near 16 degrees under CW operating conditions at peak wall plug efficiency, narrowing further under pulsed drive conditions.
For nearly twenty years most models of VCSEL wearout reliability have incorporated Arrhenius activation energy near
0.7 eV, usually with a modest current exponent in addition. As VCSEL production extends into more wavelength, power, and speed regimes new active regions, mirror designs, and growth conditions have become necessary. Even at
more traditional VCSEL 850-nm wavelengths instances of very different reliability acceleration factors have arisen. In
some cases these have profound effects on the expected reliability under normal use conditions, resulting in wearout
lifetimes that can vary more than an order of magnitude. These differences enable the extension of VCSELs in
communications applications to even greater speeds with reliability equal to or even greater than the previous lowerspeed devices. This paper discusses some of the new applications, different wearout behaviors, and their implications in real-life operation. The effect of different acceleration behaviors on reliability testing is also addressed.
Commercial demand for optical transceivers operating at 14Gbps is now a reality. It is further expected that
communications standards utilizing 850nm VCSELs at speeds up to 28Gbps will be ratified in the near future. We report
on the development and productization of 850nm VCSELs for several applications, including high speed (both 14Gbps
and 28Gbps) operation to support the continued fulfillment of data communication demand.
Results on new 850nm and 1310nm VCSEL products under development at JDSU will be presented with emphasis on
reliability criteria, advances in performance, and interconnect design. An update will also be provided on JDSU's
effort to introduce 10Gpbs LW VCSEL based components and modules into the marketplace.
Luke Graham, Jack Jewell, Kevin Maranowski, Max Crom, Stewart Feld, Joseph Smith, James Beltran, Thomas Fanning, Melinda Schnoes, Matthew Gray, David Droege, Vera Koleva, Mike Dudek, John Fiers, Russ Patterson
This article outlines development work at JDSU on InGaNAs based vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs)
operating at 1270nm and their use in 10Gbps SFP+ modules. DC and AC performance of die and transmit optical
subassemblies (TOSAs) will be described. Due to their low power consumption, LW VCSELs are ideal for use in
SFP+; module performance will be described as well.
Beginning with 4 Gigabit/sec Fibre-Channel, 1310nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are now entering the marketplace. Such VCSELs perform like distributed feedback lasers but have drive currents and heat dissipation like 850nm VCSELs, making them ideal for today's high-performance interconnects and the only choice for the next step in increased interconnection density. Transceiver performances at 4 and 10 Gigabits/sec over fiber lengths 10-40km are presented. The active material is extremely robust, resulting in excellent reliability.
The development of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) has led to new types of low power, high efficiency light sources for data communication. The small size, low power, and surface-normal emission of VCSELs has enabled relatively dense 2D arrays for highly parallel data communication and optical signal processing. In this paper we examine the issues of device scaling on VCSEL performance. We look specifically at what benefits may be derived from continued scaling of the active volume down to minimum sized dimensions, and what device schemes may be required to obtain the scaling. Laser rate equations are used to show that when the VCSEL mode volume is reduced to wavelength cubed dimensions, a significant improvement in modulation speed is predicted based on the radiative lifetime change due to the Purcell effect. However, several parasitic effects must be controlled in order to realize these benefits. Most important are control of the optical loss due to diffraction or scattering, and control of the electronic losses due to carrier diffusions and surface effects. Novel optical confinement schemes based on oxide- apertures, photonic bandgaps, and/or closely coupled 2D arrays may be useful for controlling optical loss, while self-assembled quantum dots are attractive for controlling electronic diffusion to dimensions within the minimum optical mode volume.
The development of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) has led to new types of low power, high efficiency light sources for data communication. The small size, low power, and surface-normal emission of VCSELs has enabled relatively dense 2D arrays for highly parallel data communication and optical signal processing. In this paper we examine the issues of device scaling volume down to minimum sized dimensions, and what device schemes may be required to obtain the scaling. Laser rate equations are used to show that when the VCSEL mode volume is reduce to wavelength cubed dimensions, a significant improvement in modulation speed is predicted based on the radiative lifetime change due to the Purcell effect. However, several parasitic effects must be controlled in order to realize these benefits. Most important are control of the optical loss due to diffraction or scattering, and control of the electronic losses due to carrier diffusion and surface effects. Novel optical confinement schemes based on oxide- apertures, photonic bandgaps, and/or closely coupled 2D arrays may be useful for controlling optical loss, while self-assembled quantum dots are attractive for controlling electronic diffusion to dimensions within the minimum optical mode volume.
The development of vertical-cavity surface -emitting lasers (VCSELs) has led to new types of low power, high efficiency light sources for data communication. The small size, low power, and surface-normal emission of VCSELs has enabled relatively dense 2D arrays for highly parallel data communication and optical signal processing. In this paper we examine the issues of device scaling on VCSEL performance. We look specifically at what benefits may be derived from continued scaling of the active volume down to minimum sized dimensions, and what device schemes may be required to obtain the dimensions, a significant improvement in modulation speed is predicted based on the radiative lifetime change due to the Purcell effect. However, several parasitic effects must be controlled in order to realize these benefits. Most important are control of the optical loss due to diffraction or scattering,and control of the electronic losses due to carrier diffusion and surface effects. Novel optical confinement schemes based on oxide- apertures, photonic bandgaps, and/or closely coupled 2D array may be useful for controlling optical loss, while self-assembled quantum dots are attractive for controlling electronic diffusion to dimensions within the minimum optical mode volume.
The developing of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) has led to new types of low power, high efficiency light sources for data communication. The small size, low power, and surface-normal emission of VCSELs has enabled relatively dense 2D arrays for highly parallel data communication and optical signal processing. In this paper we examine the issues of device scaling on VCSEL performance. We look specifically at what benefits may be derived from continued scaling of the active volume down to minimum sized dimensions, and what device schemes may be required to obtain the scaling. Laser rate equations are used to show that when the VCSEL mode volume is reduced to wavelength cubed dimensions, a significant improvement in modulation speed is predicted based on the radiative lifetime change due to the Purcell effect. However, several parasitic effects must be controlled in order to realize these benefits. Most important are control of the otpical loss due to diffraction or scattering, and control of the electronic losses due to carrier diffusion and surface effects. Novel optical confinement schemes based on oxide- apertures, photonic band gaps, and/or closely coupled 2D arrays may be useful for controlling optical loss, while self-assembled quantum dots are attractive for controlling electronic diffusion to dimensions within the minimum optical mode volume.
Time resolved photoluminescence at 295 degrees K has been used to characterize carrier recombination in a single 80 angstrom In0.20Ga0.80As quantum well before and after wet thermal oxidation of a 300 angstrom Al0.96Ga0.04As layer which is separated from the quantum well by 100 angstrom GaAs and a 225 angstrom Al0.75Ga0.25As barrier layer. Both of these layers are repeated on the other side of the quantum well and all together are typical of a half wave cavity spacer section used in low threshold microcavity VCSELs. Before oxidation the radiative lifetime is 12 ns. After steam oxidation for 5 minutes at 420 degrees Celsius the lifetime and intensity of the photoluminescence remains unchanged. An oxidation time of 10 minutes at the same temperature reduces the radiative lifetime to less than 1 ns and decreases the photoluminescence intensity by a factor of five. In addition, the lifetime and intensity of the photoluminescence remain the same as in the unoxidized case when the Al0.96Ga0.04As layer is etched off in a 1:1 HCl solution, possibly indicating that surface recombination at the Al0.75Ga0.25As barrier is not responsible for the shorter lifetimes in the oxidized samples. Furthermore, secondary ion mass spectrometry data on steam oxidized and unoxidized samples shows the presence of a significant oxygen concentration in the quantum well for oxidized samples that had sub nanosecond lifetimes and no oxygen in the quantum wells for samples that were not steam oxidized and displayed 12 ns lifetimes.
In contrast to volume holographic material where 1-to-many fanouts are realized using multiplexed volume holograms, we report in this paper the first Si-based surface relief polygonal gratings aiming at optical clock signal distribution application. Surface relief grating with 1 micrometers period (0.5 micrometers feature size) was fabricated using reactive ion beam etch. Both hexagonal and square gratings were demonstrated for 1-to-4 and 1-to-6 fanouts. Surface- normal input and output coupling schemes were carried out with efficiency as high as 65%. Employment of substrate modes in silicon instead of the guided modes greatly releases the required grating spacing for the demonstrated two-way surface-normal coupling. Clock signal distribution operating at 1.3 micrometers with 7.5 GHz clock speed was demonstrated with signal to noise ratio as high as 60 dB.
We present a novel surface-normal optical wavelength-division-demultiplexer (WDDM), working at 750, 770, 790, 810, 830 and 850 nm wavelengths. The device is based on an integration of a planar waveguide, a substrate waveguide and waveguide holograms. The unique optical in-plane to surface-normal conversion converts the difficult three spatial and three angular edge coupling problem into a planar surface one, resulting in a practical compact face-to-face packaging between the photodetector array and the demultiplexer. A six-channel wavelength-division-demultiplexer with equally spaced collinear surface-normal outputs are designed and demonstrated in a polymer-based planar waveguide in conjunction with holograms on a glass substrate.
In this paper we demonstrate a novel Si wafer based optical clock distribution technique operating 1.3 micrometers and based on a central polygonal input coupling grating structure and surrounding rings of linear output coupling gratings. In this arrangement, both the central polygonal and linear output gratings have a period of 1 micrometers , allowing light to be efficiently coupled into and out of the Si wafer substrate mode in the surface normal direction. A double side polished Si wafer is used to limit the surface scattering losses as the signal travels through the bulk of the Si wafer. One of the major advantages of this technique is that, since the gratings can be written onto the Si surface using optical contact lithography and reactive ion etching, an array of grating shapes and depths can be selected to optimize the diffraction efficiency and focus the output beams onto the associated multi-chip module (MCM). This helps to reduce the optical power requirements that a future system would have and also allows for greater flexibility in system packaging design.
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