Design and technology of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with nonconducting epitaxial mirrors

Design and technology problems in the fabrication of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) equipped with nonconducting distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) and fabricated using molecular-beam epitaxy are considered. VCSELs with an active region were formed on the basis of InGaAs quantum wells and incorporated an AlGaAs/GaAs bottom DBR and an oxidized AlGaO/GaAs top DBR; the diameter of the oxidized aperture was equal to 7-12 µm. The devices exhibit a continuous-wave lasing at room temperature with threshold currents of 0.5-1.5 mA, a differential efficiency as high as 0.5 mW/mA, and a highest output power of 3 mW.