| Long-wavelength vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) emitting in the 1300--1600nm wavelength window are attractive light sources for short to mid-range optical fiber communications. These devices target low-loss and low-dispersion minima in standard optical fibers and are expected to provide a low-cost alternative to the existing edge-emitting infrastructure. With low-power consumption, on wafer testing; simple packaging, and high fiber-coupling efficiency, VCSELs are ideal transmitters for CWDM, metro, local area, and storage area networks.; Recently, much attention has been devoted to a rich variety of approaches to long-wavelength VCSELs. One underlying problem, however, has been the need to match a reliable high-gain active region with high-index-contrast distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) over the full 1300--1600nm wavelength range. One solution to this problem is to utilize well-established InAlGaAs active-region technology coupled with AlGaAsSb DBRs. This combination facilitates monolithic all-epitaxial InP-based devices spanning the entire 1300--1600nm wavelength range. Previously, Dr. Shigeru Nakagawa and Dr. Eric Hall have demonstrated long-wavelength VCSELs with Sb-based technology operating at 1550nm.; This dissertation demonstrates the first high-performance InP-based VCSELs with Sb-based DBRs operating at 1310nm, thus solidifying Sb-based technology as a wavelength flexible platform for long-wavelength devices. Also developed is a novel and efficient tunnel-junction aperturing technology for generating extremely low-loss optical and electrical confinement. Lastly, it is shown that the benefits from such an aperturing scheme produce marked improvements in device operation versus previously demonstrated Sb-based VCSELs.; The devices from this research generated over 1.6mW single-mode continuous-wave (CW) output power at room temperature (>2mW multi-mode), displayed threshold currents down to 1mA, and operated CW up to 90°C. Furthermore, world-record CW differential efficiencies (>60%) for long-wavelength VCSELs were obtained, demonstrating the effectiveness of low-loss selectively etched tunnel-junction apertures. High-speed modulation up to 6.0Gb/s was also demonstrated for the first time in Sb-based VCSELs. Error-free operation at 3.125Gb/s was shown up to 60°C, with extinction ratios remaining >8dB. These results clearly demonstrate that all-epitaxial InP-based devices with Sb-based DBRs are a viable option for high-performance long-wavelength VCSELs. |
