Vertical-multicavity, gallium arsenide-aluminum gallium arsenide PnpN surface-emitting laser

A new vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser device is conceived and proposed for applications such as interconnections and optical computing. It consists of one or several AlGaAs-GaAs PnpN heterojunctions, for bistability and carrier confinement, stacked between two alternating high and low refractive index AlGaAs Bragg reflectors, for optical feedback and vertical emission at 870 nm. PN junctions connecting PnpN sections are designed to work as a tunnel diode. Performance is predicted for devices with a 35 period substrate Bragg reflector and up to ten PnpN sections, by the optical transfer matrix method, which is extended to determine laser oscillation conditions and output power. The threshold current densities are from 1.4 to 3.5 kA/cm...