A comprehensive fully self-consistent optical-electrical-thermal-recombination model of the 1.3-μm tunneljunction (TJ) InAsP/InGaAsP and AlGaInAs/AlGaInAs vertical-cavity surface-emitting diode lasers (VCSELs) is used to determine their continuous-wave (CW) performance characteristics. As expected, for the devices with large TJ, higher-order transverse LP ij modes exhibit the lowest lasing thresholds. However, the desired single fundamental LP 01 mode operation remains dominating one for tunnel junctions of diameters up to 7 μm (InAsP/InGaAsP VCSEL) and 6 μm (AlGaInAs/AlGaInAs VCSEL) within quite a wide range of ambient temperatures: 290 − 355 K and 290 − 405 K, respectively. Therefore, the 1.3-μm InAsP/InGaAsP and AlGaInAs/AlGaInAs multiple quantum well VCSELs have been found to offer a very promising CW performance as sources of carrier radiation for the optical fibre communication. Keywords: QW VCSELs, 1.3-µm VCSELs, simulation of a diode laser operation, optical fibre communication.
INTRODUCTIONVertical-cavity surface-emitting diode lasers (VCSELs) because of their significantly intrinsic advantages over edge-emitting lasers, such as a ultralow threshold current, single-longitudinal-mode operation, a circular outputbeam profile, small beam divergence and wafer-scale integrability, compose the most suited laser configuration for the fibre application. Commercially available optical fibre communication systems used in local area networks currently employ 0.85-μm radiation. However, performance of this first-generation optical-fibre network is not able to meet the demands of the extremely quickly developing Internet and data transmission needs any longer. On the other hand the above requirements can be satisfied by the second-generation system taking advantage of 1.3-μm radiation. The material systems discussed for 1.3-μm light emission include the InGaAsP [1], GaInNAs [2], GaAsSb [3] and InGaAs quantum wells (QWs) [4], and as well as In(Ga)As quantum dots [5]. As an alternative option, InAsP [6] and AlGaInAs [7] QWs can be used in a VCSEL structure.The main goal of the present paper is to examine with the aid of the simulation model a possibility to use the phosphide based TJ-VCSELs as sources of the 1.3-μm carrier wave for the optical fibre communication. In particular, an excitation of various transverse modes will be analysed.