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Al sub x Ga sub (1-x) As-GaAs Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSEL'S) Grown on Si-Substrate by MBE

16 April 1990

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Al sub x Ga sub 1-x As-GaAs vertical cavity surface emitting lasers on Si are promising GaAs light sources for monolithic integration with Si technology because of their many attractive processing and performance advantages over the lateral cavity edge-emitting lasers. The device requires no cleaving to form Fabry-Perot cavity mirrors and an optimized device will have sufficiently small area (~5microns diameter) which can be obtained free from thermal strain with reduced dislocation density by employing techniques such as post-growth patterning or selective area growth combined with thermal annealing. Because of greatly reduced active volume, the total threshold current can potentially be much smaller, thus easing the current requirements to drive the laser.