Abstract

There are several reasons to consider surface emitting lasers over conventional edge emitting semiconductor lasers for optical interconnects. One reason is that conventional cleaved facet lasers cannot be easily integrated into an optoelectronic circuit since the act of cleaving separates the laser from the rest of the chip. This problem can be solved by using etching or microcleaving techniques to define the laser facets on the circuit or by mounting thin film semiconductor lasers (produced by the epitaxial lift-off technique¹) on the primary integrated circuit substrate. However, the use of surface emitting lasers allows for easy access to the emitted laser light, and in some concepts the surface emitted light can be electronically directed to receivers located on separate chips.²

© 1990 Optical Society of America