Visible-light vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers grown by solid-source molecular beam epitaxy

Abstract

Visible vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are potential light sources for polymer optical fibre (POF) data transmission systems. Minimum attenuation of light in standard PMMA-POFs occurs at about 650 nm. For POFs of a few tens of meters in length VCSELs at slightly longer wavelengths (670 - 690 nm) are also acceptable. So far, the visible VCSELs have been grown by metal organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD). They may also be grown by a novel variant of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), a so-called all-solid-source MBE or SSMBE. In this paper, we describe growth of the first visible-light VCSELs by SSMBE and present the main results obtained. In particular, we have achieved lasing action at a sub-milliamp cw drive current for a VCSEL having the emission window of 8um in diameter, while a 10um device exhibited an external quantum efficiency of 6.65% in CW operation at room temperature. The lasing action up to temperature of 45°C has been demonstrated.