Impact of Transverse Optical Confinement on Performance of 1.55 μm Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers with a Buried Tunnel Junction

Abstract—The impact of transverse optical confinement on the static and spectral characteristics of 1.55 μm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (WF-VCSEL) with a buried tunnel junction (BTJ) n++-InGaAs/p++-InGaAs/p++-InAlGaAs, implemented using molecular-beam epitaxy and wafer fusion. It was found that for VCSELs with a tunnel junction (TJ) etching depth of 15 nm, the single-mode lasing occurs up to 8 μm BTJ mesa size due to a relatively weak lateral optical confinement, while the effect of a saturable absorber (SA) appears when the BTJ mesa size is less than 7 μm. Enhancing lateral optical confinement by increasing the BTJ etching depth up to 20 nm leads to suppression of the SA effect at the BTJ mesa size of 5–6 μm, but simultaneously limits the maximum single-mode optical power. According to obtained results an increase in the spectral mismatch between the maximum of the gain spectrum of the active region and the resonance wavelength of the WF-VCSEL up to 35–50 nm will make it possible to suppress the undesirable SA effect in a wide range of the BTJ mesa sizes maintaining the single-mode lasing.