1-Gb/s modulation characteristics of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser array module

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are promising devices for low-cost optical data communications. We fabricated an 8-channel VCSEL array module that is easily push/pull-connected to a mechanically transferable (MT) fiber connector. Modal noise had little adverse effect on bit-error-rate (BER) performance. A BER measurement of 8-channel VCSELs recorded a sensitivity of less than -23.7 dBm at 1 Gb/s and BER=10/sup -11/.