Enhancement of lateral mode confinement in VCSELs using curved Bragg mirrors

Single-mode operation of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers is difficult to achieve over a wide dynamic range. Several techniques have been used in the past with various degrees of success to suppress oscillation in higher order modes. This includes oxide-confined structures, anti-guided structures, etched surface-relief structures and external-cavity spatially filtered structures. In an earlier paper, we demonstrated a shadow-masked MOCVD technique for growing curved Bragg mirror stacks. This was proposed as a possible technique for enhancing the single-mode properties of oxide-confined VCSELs. In this paper, we present numerical simulation results to demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique.