GaN-based vertical cavity surface emitting lasers with periodic gain structures

Abstract

We have achieved room-temperature CW operations of GaN-based vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) with periodic gain structures (PGSs). The PGS-VCSEL consisted of 4.5λ-thick optical cavity length and two GaInN 5-quantum-well (QW) active regions separated with a Mg-doped GaN intermediate layer. The uniform carrier injection into the two active regions was also investigated using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). It is found that the use of an optimum Mg concentration in the intermediate layers improves the uniform carrier injection in the two active regions. From these results, we realized the CW operation of VCSELs with PGSs grown on AlInN/GaN distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). The VCSEL under CW operation showed a threshold current density of 16.5 kA/cm2 and its operation wavelength was 409.9 nm.