Abstract

VCSELs have shown great promise as optical sources for a variety of important optoelectronic applications and therefore continue to be under continuous development. There is also very considerable scientific interest in VCSELs which explains the continuing intensive research investigations. This interest is motivated, in particular, by the intriguing physics associated with the significant modification of emission characteristics that can be achieved with 3- dimensional micro-cavity structures. However, for a variety of reasons some of even the recently fabricated VCSELs tend to have large diameters (D = 10–100μm) but which are still very short along the longitu- dinal direction [l, 2). Recent experimental results [3] and preliminary theoretical analysis [4] suggest that, unlike for traditional, small diameter (D < 10μm) VCSELs, the larger diameter devices have in-plane propagation of emitted light which may significantly affect device operational charateristics.

© 1996 Optical Society of America