Antiguided VCSELs and VCSEL phase-locked arrays

Coherent emission from the surface makes vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL) very attractive light sources for many applications. As an efficient means to increase the coherent output power from a large emission aperture, antiguided structures have been studied for the last few years. Antiguides have demonstrated high-power, single-mode operation, from edge-emitting lasers and, more recently, have been implemented in VCSELs. The advantage of an antiguide structure is that it provides strong lateral radiation losses, which are highly-mode dependent, thus filtering out higher-order spatial modes In addition, a large index-step provides for mode stability against carrier- and thermally-induced index variations. This paper discusses recent developments of large aperture antiguided VCSELs; simplified antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide (S-ARROW-type) VCSELs and two-dimensional phase-locked antiguided VCSEL arrays. Both structures are fabricated by a selective chemical etching process and two-step MOCVD growth.