Abstract

There has been a surge of interest in vertical cavity surface emitting laser diodes (VCSELs).^1-4 The ability of room temperature cw operation is crucial to the practical use of such devices. We report room temperature cw operation of GaAs VCSELs. The VCSEL shown in Fig. 1 was grown by molecular beam epitaxy and, starting from the Si doped GaAs substrate, consisted of an n-type Al_o.3Ga_o.7As etch stop followed by an n-type twenty-two-pair Al_o.1Ga_o.9As/AlAs semiconductor distributed Bragg reflector (DBR), an Al_o.3Ga_o.7As/GaAs (0.5-μm) double heterostructure active region, a five-pair p-type Al_o.1Ga_o.9As/Al_o.7Ga_o.3As semiconductor DBR, a 450-ÅAl_o.7Ga_o.3As phase matching layer, and finally a 100-Å GaAs heavily p-doped contact layer.

© 1990 Optical Society of America