Impact of device parameters on thermal performance of high speed oxide confined 850 nm VCSELs

• We study the impact of device parameters, such asinner-aperture diameter and cavity photon lifetime, on thermal rollover mechanisms in 850-nm, oxide-confined, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) designed for high-speed operation. We perform measurements on four different VCSELs of different designs and use our empirical thermal model for calculating the power dissipated with increasing bias currents through various physical processes such as absorption within the cavity, carrier thermalization, carrier leakage, spontaneous carrier recombination, and Joule heating. When reducing the topmirror reflectivity to reduce internal optical absorption loss we find an increase of power dissipation due to carrier leakage. There is therefore a trade-ff between the powers dissipated owing to optical absorption and carrier leakage in the sense that overcompensating for optical absorption enhances carrier leakage (and vice versa). We further find that carrier leakage places the ultimate limit on the thermal performance for this entire class ofdevices. Our analysis yields useful design optimization strategies for mitigating the impact of carrier leakage and should thereby prove useful for the performance enhancement of 850-nm, highspeed, oxide-confined VCSELs.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

photon lifetime

Carrier leakage

vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

thermal effects

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)