Polarization control of vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers using a birefringent metal/dielectric polarizer loaded on top distributed Bragg reflector

Spin-polarized vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser: Epitaxial growth issues and device properties

“…Numerous methods aimed at polarization stability in VCSELs have been demonstrated experimentally, including usage of nonisotropic gain, 3 noncylindrically symmetric resonators, 4 external feedback, 5 externally applied stress, 6 and mirrors with a polarizationdependent reflectivity. 7 These techniques have proven quite successful in stabilizing an a priori determined polarization orientation over a wide range of operating conditions. Yet, the ability to additionally control the polarization of laser emission-i.e., switch between orthogonal polarization states using an externally controllable signal-would be useful for a host of applications including coherent detection systems, cryptography, magneto-optical recording, optical switches, reconfigurable optical interconnects, and telecommunications with enhanced bandwidth.…”

Room temperature lasing of GaAs quantum wire vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers grown on (775)B GaAs substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

“…In the case of high-speed data transmission with the use of VCSELs, polarization switching of light output may cause excess noise and increase bit-error rates [12,13]. In order to resolve this problem, many methods such as formation of rectangular mesa [14], birefringence in top mirrors [15] and using non-(1 0 0) substrates [16,17] have been attempted. Use of the (7 7 5)B QWRs in the active region of VCSELs is believed to be one of the best candidates to resolve the polarization instability problem because of their optical anisotropic gain.…”

Polarization and transverse mode control of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers with metal nano‐structure

“…This is a significant difficulty, especially for single mode elements, when there is external feedback noise, and the control technique for the polarization and transverse modes will be important. For transverse mode control, methods such as forming a metal aperture and controlling the reflection factor by forming a concavo-convex shape on the device surface have been reported; and for polarization control, techniques such as the use of metal/dielectric periodic structures have been proposed [2][3][4][5]. Also, surface emitting lasers that implement both transverse mode con-trol and the polarization mode control by the use of a surface periodic structure or photonic crystal structure [6,7] have also been reported.…”