3 Gb/s high-power optical data transmission system

A novel high-power optical data transmission system is presented, which consists of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) and a high-power tapered semiconductor amplifier. With this VCSEL master-oscillator power-amplifier system (VCSEL-MOPA), more than 0.5 W of optical output power has been achieved preserving the optical and electrical properties of the master-oscillator. Data transmission experiments at 3 Gb/s have been demonstrated with a bit-error rate (BER) below 10/sup -11/.