Electrical characterization and application of very high speed vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs)

Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) offer many benefits over conventional edge-emitting lasers including economical microelectronic batch processing, easy extension to 2-D arrays, and of interest here, very large intrinsic bandwidths due to reduced cavity volume. Results of electrical characterization of a 19 GHz bandwidth 850 nm VCSEL are presented. Small-signal characterization and modeling of the frequency response and device impedance is presented. Large signal performance is studied using two-tone RF and high-speed digital measurements. Appropriate drive conditions for high-speed digital applications are demonstrated.