Abstract

We have investigated optical coupling between two adjacent vertical-cavity laser diodes in a 2-D array. The lasers are grown by molecular beam epitaxy on n-GaAs substrates. The active layer consists of three strained In_0.2Ga_0.8As quantum wells with GaAs barriers embedded in Al_0.4Ga_0.6As layers for efficient carrier confinement. The mirror are realized as AlAs-GaAs quarter- wave stacks with 50 Å Al_0.4Ga_0.6 As transition layers. The top and bottom mirrors have 20 and 24.5 periods, respectively. Lateral device formation employs proton implantation and wet chemical mesa etching. Laser current flow is vertical in the n-type top and lateral in the p-type bottom reflector.¹ The two investigated devices LD1 and LD2 have active diameters of 12 μm and 16 μm.

© 1994 Optical Society of America