Polarization control of 1.6 µm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers using InAs quantum dashes on InP(001)
Résumé
The authors report the demonstration of a polarization-controlled vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL), emitting at the telecommunication wavelength. VCSELs are based on an active medium constituted of well elongated InAs quantum dashes (QDHs) nanostructures grown on conventional (001) oriented InP substrate. QDHs present important optical polarization anisotropies according to the (1-10) crystallographic orientation. Inserted into a VCSEL microcavity, QDH VCSELs show a continuous wave laser operation at 1.6 µm, at room temperature, with a reduced 13 kW/cm2 optical excitation density threshold. The QDH VCSEL output laser polarization is fixed along the same (1-10) direction. Power and temperature dependant measurements do not show any polarization instabilities and switching on all QDH VCSELs. A polarization extinction ratio as high as 30 dB is deduced from experiments.