Abstract

Surface emitting lasers with high output power in a single transverse mode have much potential for applications in optical communications, laser printing and optical data storage. However, single transverse mode VCSEL’s have been limited to 1-5mW and although large aperture VCSEL’s can provide high power they are highly multimode. Optically pumped external-cavity surface emitting lasers^1,2 can overcome this limitation because the active region is defined by the shape of the pumping beam which can be matched by the external cavity mode to promote oscillation in a single transverse mode. Furthermore, by operating in an external cavity, various optical elements can be introduced to control the nature of the laser output, e.g. stable, tunable, single frequency- or mode-locked-operation. In this paper we report the initial development and characterisation of diode-pumped, external-cavity GaAs/AlGaAs surface emitting lasers.

© 1998 IEEE