Suppression of polarization switching in birefringent antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Influence of birefringence on the multimode operation of antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW) vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) is analyzed. It can be shown that polarization switching is mainly due to thermal lensing effects. Hence, a new design rule is proposed to optimize the dimensions of ARROW for the suppression of polarization switching. Using the optimized design, the maximum single-polarization output power of VCSELs can be tripled. In addition, it is shown that the performance of the optimized ARROW VCSELs will not be deteriorated by the uncertainty of birefringence.