Åsa Haglund

Impact of Photon Lifetime on High-Speed VCSEL Performance

We investigate the impact of reduced photon lifetime on the static and dynamic performance of high-speed, oxide-confined 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). The photon lifetime is reduced by a shallow-surface etch that lowers the reflectivity of the top mirror. From an analysis of the dependence of slope efficiency on mirror loss (etch depth) and temperature, we deduce values for the internal quantum efficiency and the internal optical loss and their dependencies on temperature. From an analysis of the dependence of the small-signal-modulation response on photon lifetime (etch depth) and temperature, we deduce values for differential gain and gain compression, and their dependencies on photon lifetime and temperature. We find a tradeoff between high resonance frequency and low damping for speed enhancement, leading to an optimum photon lifetime close to 3 ps for this particular VCSEL design that enables a modulation bandwidth of 23 GHz and error-free transmission at 40 Gb/s.

High-Speed, Low-Current-Density 850 nm VCSELs

We report on the design, fabrication, and evaluation of large-aperture, oxide-confined 850 nm vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) with high modulation bandwidth at low current densities. We also compare the use of InGaAs and GaAs quantum wells (QWs) in the active region. Both VCSELs reach an output power of 9 mW at room temperature, with a thermal resistance of 1.9deg C/mW. The use of InGaAs QWs improves the high-speed performance and enables a small-signal modulation bandwidth of 20 GHz at 25degC and 15 GHz at 85degC. At a constant bias current density of only 11 kA/cm2, we generate open eyes under large-signal modulation at bit rates up to 25 Gbit/s at 85degC and 30 Gbit/s at 55degC.

4-PAM for high-speed short-range optical communications

In this work, we compare 4-pulse amplitude modulation and on-off keying modulation formats at high speed for short-range optical communication systems. The transmission system comprised a directly modulated vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser operating at a wavelength of 850 nm, an OM3+ multimode fiber link, and a photodetector detecting the intensity at the receiver end. The modulation formats were compared both at the same bit-rate and at the same symbol rate. The maximum bit-rate used was 25 Gbps. Propagation distances up to 600 m were investigated at 12.5 Gbps. All measurements were done in real time and without any equalization.

Active Region Design for High-Speed 850- nm VCSELs

Higher speed short-wavelength (850 nm) VCSELs are required for future high-capacity, short-reach data communication links. The modulation bandwidth of such devices is intrinsically limited by the differential gain of the quantum wells (QWs) used in the active region. We present gain calculations using an 8-band k·p Hamiltonian which show that the incorporation of 10% In in an InGaAs/AlGaAs QW structure can approximately double the differential gain compared to a GaAs/AlGaAs QW structure, with little additional improvement achieved by further increasing the In composition in the QW. This improvement is confirmed by extracting the differential gain value from measurements of the modulation response of VCSELs with optimized InGaAs/AlGaAs QW and conventional GaAs/AlGaAs QW active regions. Excellent agreement is obtained between the theoretically and experimentally determined values of the differential gain, confirming the benefits of strained InGaAs QW structures for high-speed 850-nm VCSEL applications.

Design and evaluation of fundamental-mode and polarization-stabilized VCSELs with a subwavelength surface grating

We demonstrate 850-nm oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with a locally etched subwavelength surface grating that are single-mode and polarization stable from threshold up to thermal roll-over, reaching /spl sim/4 mW of output power. The side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) is >30 dB and the orthogonal polarization suppression ratio (OPSR) is /spl sim/20 dB. Moreover, no distortion of the far-field beam profile is observed as a result of the surface grating. Our numerical calculations show that a carefully designed VCSEL can have a high simultaneous mode and polarization selectivity without a significant increase in loss for the favored fundamental mode with polarization state perpendicular to the grating lines. This indicates characteristics such as threshold current and resonance frequency will not be notably degraded. The calculations also show a low sensitivity to variations in grating etch depth and duty cycle, which relaxes fabrication tolerances. In our experimental parametric study, where the oxide aperture diameter, surface grating diameter, and grating duty cycle were varied, the combined mode and polarization selection was investigated. For an optimum combination of oxide aperture and surface grating diameters of 4.5 and 2.5 /spl mu/m, respectively, the device is found to be single-mode and polarization stable for a broad range of grating duty cycles, from 55% to 75%, with only a small variation in other laser performances, which is in line with theory.

Direct high-frequency modulation of VCSELs and applications in fibre optic RF and microwave links

With the rapid development of wireless communication networks there is an increasing demand for efficient and cost-effective transmission and distribution of RF signals. Fibre optic RF links, employing directly modulated semiconductor lasers, provide many of the desired characteristics for such distribution systems and in the search for cost-effective solutions, the vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) is of interest. It has therefore been the purpose of this work to investigate whether 850 nm VCSELs fulfil basic performance requirements for fibre optic RF links operating in the low-GHz range. The performance of single- and multimode oxide confined VCSELs has been compared, in order to pin-point limitations and to find the optimum design. Fibre optic RF links using VCSELs and multimode fibres have been assembled and evaluated with respect to performance characteristics of importance for wireless communication systems. We have found that optimized single-mode VCSELs provide the highest performance and that links using such VCSELs and high-bandwidth multimode fibres satisfy the requirements in a number of applications, including cellular systems for mobile communication and wireless local area networks.

Dynamic behavior of fundamental-mode stabilized VCSELs using a shallow surface relief

An extensive theoretical study was performed on the dynamic behavior of 850-nm-wavelength oxide-confined fundamental-mode stabilized vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), using a shallow surface relief. The surface relief is used to provide lower mirror loss for the fundamental mode, thus acting as a mode discriminator. In this way, single-mode operation at high power levels can be obtained. We utilized a comprehensive model that includes the detailed epitaxial layer structure and device geometry when calculating the optical fields and that accurately accounts for the dynamic effects of carrier density and temperature on the modal distributions. Modulation response, eye diagrams, bit error rate (BER), and relative intensity noise (RIN) were simulated and compared to the performance of VCSELs without a mode discriminator, i.e., conventional multimode VCSELs. The fundamental-mode stabilized VCSELs are associated with a higher out-coupling, which lowers the relaxation oscillation frequency and damping, and strong spatial hole burning, which induces a low-frequency roll-off in the modulation response and contributes to the damping of the relaxation oscillation at low bias. However, their dynamics is fully competitive with conventional multimode VCSELs at both 2.5 and 10 Gb/s although they exhibit a slightly higher eye closure. We only found a 0.5-dB power penalty in the BER. The RIN is enhanced, with a peak that is about 10-15 dB higher, caused by the lower damping of the relaxation oscillation. It should be noted that in the comparison we assume that all modes are equally captured from the multimode VCSEL. A mode-selective loss can severely degrade its performance.

High-speed digital modulation characteristics of oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers-numerical simulations consistent with experimental results

The vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) is a preferred light source for short-distance high-speed fiber-optic communication links. We simulate the digital modulation behavior of typical oxide-confined VCSELs under realistic working conditions with a comprehensive model that includes the detailed geometry when calculating the optical fields and that accurately accounts for the dynamic effects of carrier density and temperature on the modal distributions. The intrinsic output characteristics of single- and multimode VCSELs were studied as functions of bias and modulation depth under a 2/sup 7/-1 pseudorandom bit sequence current modulation at 2 and 10 Gb/s. The data were used to create numerical eye diagrams that show, e.g., the significant impact of the bit pattern history and the noise on the timing jitter in both single- and multimode VCSELs. For the single-mode VCSEL, the choice of the bias current and modulation depth was less critical due to its higher damping of the relaxation oscillations. The simulated VCSELs were fabricated and experimentally evaluated. The measured eye diagrams showed the same characteristic features as those in the simulations.

Impedance Characteristics and Parasitic Speed Limitations of High-Speed 850-nm VCSELs

The impedance characteristics of high-speed oxide-confined 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers have been studied with the aim of identifying the importance of device parasitics for the modulation bandwidth. Through equivalent circuit modeling, it is confirmed that device parasitics have a major impact on the bandwidth and the importance of each individual circuit element has been investigated. According to the extrapolation of the parameters derived from S11 measurements below 20 GHz towards higher frequencies and assuming that the mesa capacitance can be reduced by adding a few extra oxide layers without significantly affecting series resistance, our model predicts that the 3-dB parasitic frequency can be increased from 22 to above 30 GHz. Accounting also for bandwidth limitations due to thermal effects, we expect an increase of the modulation bandwidth of several gigahertz which may enable direct current modulation at 40 Gb/s.

High-frequency modulation and bandwidth limitations of GaInNAs double-quantum-well lasers

We have studied the modulation bandwidth of high-speed GaInNAs double-quantum-well lasers emitting at 1.28–1.30μm. A 400μm long ridge waveguide laser exhibits a small signal modulation bandwidth of 14 GHz. The intrinsic damping limited modulation bandwidth is as high as 25 GHz (K=0.35ns), and the actual modulation bandwidth is limited by thermal effects under continuous operation. The saturation of the resonance frequency at 10 GHz was found to be the result of a thermal reduction of the differential gain and a rapid increase of the threshold current when the temperature exceeds 80 °C.