Single devices and 2-D arrays of bottom-emitting vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers operating in the 980 nm wavelength regime, have been fabricated for high continuous-wave optical output power. Single devices with active diameters of 500 μm show high output powers of 1.95 W at room temperature. Its threshold current is 510 mA, and the maximum spatially averaged optical power density is 0.93 kW/cm 2. Arrays consisting of 16 elements of 200 μm active diameters arranged in a square structure achieve output powers of 1.21 W corresponding to a power density of 1 kW/cm 2 spatially averaged over the effective array chip size. The device threshold current is 1.1 A.