Cryogenic performance of double-fused 1.5-/spl mu/m vertical cavity lasers

The low-temperature performance of vertical cavity lasers (VCL's) is of interest for high-speed data transmission from superconducting and cryogenic semiconductor circuits. Our double-fused 1.5 /spl mu/m lasers employ a strain-compensated InGaAsP-InP multiquantum-well (MQW) active region that is sandwiched between two AlGaAs-GaAs distributed Bragg reflectors. Continuous wave (CW) lasing at ambient temperature as low as 7 K is measured on the same type of top-emitting devices that previously lased at a record-high temperature of 337 K. The optimum temperature is found at 180 K giving minimum threshold current, maximum modulation bandwidth of 5 GHz, and more than 3 GHz/mA/sup 1/2/ modulation current efficiency. The optimum temperature agrees very well with the theoretical prediction. Further device optimization for cryogenic high-speed applications is discussed in detail.