Very low voltage vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with low-resistance mirrors

Vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) have developed rapidly during the past few years, but their performance is still hampered by high mirror resistances. Alternate laser structures have been developed that bypass the mirrors1, giving threshold voltages of 1.7 V for 850 nm devices. We have demonstrated a VCSEL threshold voltage of 1.49 V at 956 run while maintaining conventional planar, implant-isolated VCSELs where current flows through the entire mirror stack. The reduction in threshold voltage results from greatly reduced mirror voltage drops due to low resistivity mirrors with completely linear current-voltage characteristic2 and low threshold current density VCSELs.