Tradeoffs of vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers modeling for the development of driver circuits in short distance optical links

Abstract

In short-distance optical links, the development of driving circuits for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) requires precise and computationally efficient VCSEL models. A small-signal model of a VCSEL is computationally efficient and simple to implement; however, it does not take into account the nonlinear output behavior of the VCSEL. In contrast, VCSEL models that are highly based on first principles cannot be implemented in standard circuit device simulators, because the simulation of eye diagrams becomes too time consuming. We present another approach using VCSEL models, which are based on the 1-D rate equations. Our analysis shows that they combine efficient extraction and short simulation time with an accurate calculation of eye diagrams over a wide range of ambient temperatures. As different implementations of the rate equations exist, tradeoffs between three different versions are presented and compared with measured GaAs oxide-confined VCSELs. The first model has a linear and the second a logarithmic function of the gain versus the carrier density. The third model considers the additional transport time for carriers to reach the active region with quantum wells. For parameter extraction, a minimum set of parameters is identified, which can be determined from fundamental measurements.