| With the advent of new Internet services for exchaging not only texts and pictures but also home-made videos and high-definition movies, the appetite for more internet bandwidth is still growing at a fast pace. Satisfying these demands require extending the high-speed fiber optical networks all the way to the end users. This approach will require high-performance lasers, detectors, and modulators that are also very inexpensive and power-efficient. VCSELs are ideal light sources for this application due to their low power consumption, easier fiber coupling, ease of fabrication, and the possibility of dense 2-D integration.;A new GaAs-based gain material, GaInNAsSb, can be an enabling technology for VCSELs in the 1.3-1.6mum wavelength range appropriate for optical communications. It can also enable high-power lasers for pumping Raman amplifiers, which can significantly increase the usable bandwidth of optical fibers. Growth of GaInNAsSb by molecular beam epitaxy has been very challenging, but various improvements in growth and annealing conditions lead to very low-threshold 1.55mum edge-emitting lasers and the first GaAs-based pulsed-mode 1.534mum VCSELs. Improving their temperature stability and achieving room-temperature continuous-wave(CW) VCSELs was the main objective of this thesis work.;This thesis first discusses additional improvements in annealing and growth conditions, which led to a factor of 4 increase in the peak pholuminescence intensity. Edge-emitting lasers employing different numbers and structures of GaInNasSb QWs were compared, and the carrier leakage to the GaNAs barriers has been identified to be the dominant source of carrier recombination, by measurements using segmented contacts. Using the same triple QW structures and carefully designed AlGaAs/GaAs DBR mirrors, the first-ever all-epitaxial near-room-temperature CW VCSELs at 1528nm are realized on GaAs substrates. |
