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Effective cavity length in vertical cavity surface emitting laser

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1995 Acta Phys. Sin. (Overseas Edn) 4 810
(http://iopscience.iop.org/1004-423X/4/11/003)
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Volume 4, Number 11
1004-423X/95/04110810-06

ACTA PHYSICA SINICA

(Overseas Edition)

November, 1995
(3 1995 Chin. Phvs. Soc.

EFFECTIVE CAVITY LENGTH IN VERTICAL CAVITY

SURFACE EMITTING LASER
PANZHONG(% fl),WU RoNG-HAN(E%>R),
and WANGQ I - M I N G ( % ~ )
National Integrated Optoelectronics Laboratory, Institute of Semiconductor, Academia Sinica,
Beijing 100083 , China
(Received 17 October 1994)
Effective cavity length method is introduced to vertical cavity surface emitting laser for
characterizing some properties, including reflectivity, FWHM, mode wavelength and threshold gain. Some experiment results are demonstrated, showing the agreement of theoretical
analysis with experiment.

PACC: 4255P; 4260D; 6865

Vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) is a demanded source for optical communication, optical interconnection and signal processing due t o its unique features such as
stable single-mode operation, narrow beam divergence, low threshold current and densely
However, because of short gain region of VCSEL (< 1pm), very high

packed 2D

reflectivity and mode gain are required. The exact determination of high reflectivity is difficult in the usually used two-beam method and some other related methods. Thus, t o find
a simple way t o qualify the reflectivity is necessary.

To analyze the lasing condition and dynamic properties, Suematsu et

discussed the

effective length of the distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) for an edge emitting DBR laser.
They found that for a DBR laser, the reflective phase

C#J

is nearly linearly dependent on the

p - Po)of the propagation constants between the propagation constant p of

mode and the Bragg propagation constant Po around the Bragg wavelength. So

difference Ap(=
waveguide

the effective length d& of DBR can be defined as 2 d , ~= aq5/aAp/a+,, and used t o solve
lasing condition and dynamic properties. This indicates that the reflective phase caused by

DBR is equal to the phase caused by a uniform medium whose length is d,R.
As for a VCSEL, to our knowledge, the detailed discussion bn the effective cavity length
has not appeared. In this paper, we calculate the effective cavity length in VCSEL and use
it to investigate some lasing properties.
The vertical cavity surface emitting laser structure we used for this study (Table 1)
consists of 23.5 pairs of n-type DBR AlAs/Alo.lGao.gAs mirror stack. a GaAs/Gao,sAl0,2As

MQW active region and 20.5 pairs of p-type DBR AlAs/Alo lGao gAs mirror stack, a t the
top is p+ GaAs matching layer. Compared with the edge-emitting DBR laser, VCSEL has
its unique feature-. One ic that its cavity length is usually less than 1pm, the other is that
810

No. 11

Effective Cavity Length

...

811

the difference of refractive index is much larger by using semiconductor multilayers instead
of etched grating.
The schematic structure of VCSEL.
Conduction type and carrier concentration
D+-GaAs
I i~io~~cm-~ I
pAlAS
1x 10ls cm-3

Table 1.

Layer thickness
100 A
20x (725 A+610

A)
I

725 %I
250 A
282 A
400 A
80 8,
3 x (100 A+80

A)

400
282 A
250 A
725 A
23x (610 A+725

A)

.
I

0.8 pm

pAlo. 1Gao.sAs
pAlAs
p Alo.5 Gw. 5-49
i-Alo.sG~.sAs
i-Al, Gal-, As
i-Alo.2Gao.sAs
i-GaAs

2-41

9 x 10'' cm-'
I

1 ~ 1 0 ~ ~ c m - ~
7x lo1' cm-3

z=0.5+ 0.2

42
43
44
45
46
47-52

i-Alo.zGao.sAs
i-Al, Gal-,As
i-Alo.5Gao.sAs
n- Alo.5Gao.5 As
n-AlAs
n-A1o.lGW.QAs
n-AlAs
n-GaAs

Layer number
1

s=0.2-+ 0.5

53
54
55

4 . 5 IO'~ cm-3
3 x IO" cm-3
2 . 7 lo1'
~ cm-3
I

3 x lo1' cm-3
3x10~~cm-~

56

57-102
I

103

Fig. 1. The relation between reflective phase of DBR and propagation constant in VCSEL. Curve
1: number of DBR pairs is 4, " d e s = 0.98X0; curve 2: number of DBR pairs is 8, " d e s = 1.42X0 ;
curve 3: number of DBR pairs is from 12 to 22, " d e s = 1.45X0.

Based on optical propagation matrix method, the relationship between the reflective
phase and the propagation constant in this kind of DBR is calculated. The results (Fig.1)

812

Vol. 4

Pan Zhong et al.

~

~~

~~

show that reflective phase is nearly linearly dependent on the propagation constant. When
the number of DBR pairs is higher than 12, the ratios

a+/t?p become

invariant with the

number of DBR pairs. The deduced effective length NmdeR(= 1 / 2 . a+/aklx=x,) of DBR
is about 1.45X0, where N , = ,f?/k is the mode refractive index. According to the above
analysis, from phase viewpoint we regard a VCSEL structure as a F-P cavity, whose front
and back mirrors reflectivities are reflectivities of p-type and n-type DBR, respectively, the
effective cavity length is equal to the sum of real cavity length and two DBRs effective
length N,Le~ = A,

+ Nmdeffl + Nmdefn

3.9X0. So the lasing condition of VCSEL can be

analyzed by the effective cavity length.

Optical length/A

34

38

42

46

50

54

58

Fig. 3. Curve a: variation of mode position

with cavity length in a standard F-P cavity;
curve b: variation of mode position with DBR
in VCSEL; curve c: variation of mode position
with cavity length in VCSEL.

62

Niinibe of layer

Fig. 2 . The electric field distribution in VCSEL.

For further explanation on the effective cavity length, we also calculate the electric field
distribution in VCSEL (Fig.2). &om layer 43 to 55 is the real cavity length. We can see
that the range of effective cavity length is the range of concentrated light energy, from layer
36 to 63. This result is in agreement with the above phase calculation, and just due to
this reason the light limitation factor is about 0.23 in VCSEL higher than that of ordinary
edge-emit ting lasers.
Now we are going to analyze some lasing properties by the effective cavity length.
(1) Mode wavelength

The variation of the mode wavelength is determined by phase shift condition. In VCSEL

structure, the resonant condition is R,eien . Rpeiep eaiPd= 1, where R,, R, are reflectivities
of n-type and p-type DBR, respectively, 6 , , 0 , are reflective phase shifts of light through
n-type and p-type DBR, respectively, d is the real cavity length. We can realize that the
phase change is contributed by two X/4 DBRs and real cavity length. These two factors

No. 11

Effective Cavity Length

...

813

are restrained each other. We calculate three kinds of effects on the mode wavelength. The
result is shown in Fig.3, where curve a shows the variation of the mode wavelength with the
cavity length in a standard F-P cavity, curve b shows the variation of the mode wavelength
with the center wavelength of the reflectivity spectra of p-type and n-type A/4 DBR in a

VCSEL, curve c shows the variation of the mode wavelength only with the real cavity length
in a VCSEL. From this calc-ulation, we can obtain that the effect of p-type DBR, n-type
DBR or cavity length on the mode wavelength variation in VCSEL is one-third of that in a
standard F-P cavity.
By the effective cavity length, we can regard all phase effects only as the effect of the
effective cavity length, and adjust center wavelength. For example, when n-type DBRs
reflective spectra and active region are suitable, but the center wavelength of reflectivity
spectra of wafer has a little deviation, we can obtain the matching layer length and the
matching p-type DBR by the effective cavity length, and adjust the structure during growth
t o obtain satisfied wafer quality. The mode wavelength is determined by On

+ Op + 2pd =

2 p L , ~= 2m1r.
(2) The relation between R and FWHM

A transmission spectrum in a F-P cavity is as follows:

T(A)=

where R = d

m , 6 = 27r/A

+ (4Rsin26/2)/(1 - R)2 ,

(1)

2fipd, R I , R2 are two mirrors reflectivities, d is the length

of F-P cavity. The maximum position of transmission spectra and FWHM are completely
determined by reflectivity R and phase condition 6. The phase FWHM of the transmission
spectra is as follows:

A6 = 2(1 - R ) / d X .

(2)

We compare FWHM AA, of VCSEL structure with FWHM AA, of a standard F-P
cavity whose back and front mirrors reflectivities are R, and R, of p-type and n-type
DBR, respectively, cavity length is the effective cavity length of VCSEL structure N,L,ff

3.9A0 (results of Fig.1). The results are shown in Table 2, where AA, is calculated by the
propagation matrix method and AA, is calculated by Eq.(2). These results show that AAl
and AA, are coincident when the number of DBR pairs is high enough. So the effective
cavity length determined by phase shift condition in VCSEL can be used to analyze the
relation between the reflectivity and FWHM of resonant mode.

Pan Zhong et al.

814

Vol. 4

Table 2 .

A h /A

Reflectivity R

DBR pairs
4

0.7829

8
12
16
18
22

A&/A
124

96

0.9478
0.9883
0.9974
0.9988
0.9997

18.5
4.11
0.912
0.42
0.098

18.8
4.13
0.914
0.421
0.105

Using FWHM of resonant mode, combined with the effective cavity length N,L,ff

3.9A0, we can obtain accurate reflectivity. From Eq.(1) we have:

AA =

1-R

A;
2nNmLefffi

So we can obtain the expression of reflectivity:

2nNmL,fiAA
A:

R=l-

1,

O(2TNmLeffAA
A:

(3)

Thus according to measured A, and AA, we can obtain reflectivity R from Eq.(3) and
evaluate threshold gain readily.
1.2.

.-

.-

0.8
0.6

0.4

7
'[--;---J------Tl\
R > 95.5% '

,,

1.0

11
-1 i 1

~--

.'
~

0.0

0.8

0.1;

iI
8800

9200

0.2-

9600

'

It

I
?

10

ix3

~i

i x2

,;
0.00"""

e
I

'

.2#

c
c,

J1

/3#

0.4 -

8400

111,
801)n

-1

0.2

1.0

,!/

// /'
+b---

20

"

'

30

'

'

40

'

'

50

60

Effective Cavity Length

No. 11

...

815

current density is about 3000A/cm2. By the effective cavity length, combined with the
expression of threshold gain: Ygth =

1
& In RIRz
+ aaCt+ a,,t (2- 1) , we can obtain

that the threshold gain is 1800cm-l. From the relation between mode gain and injection

rg = Nwrwg,(In

+ 1 , we can obtain that

the threshold current density

is about 2600 A/cm2. Considering lateral diffusion and non-uniform injection current, the
experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical analysis.

REFERENCES
[l] J. L. Jewell, J. P. Harbison, A. Scherer, Y. H. Lee, IEEE J. Quantum Electronics, 27(1991), 1332.
[2] D. L. Huffaker, D. G. Depper, K. Kumar, T. J. Rogers, Appl. Phys. Lett., 65 (1994),97.
[3]Y.Suematsu, S. Arai and K. Kishino, J. Lightwave Tech., LT-1 (1) (1983),161.
[4]Zhang Jingming et al., Chin. J. Semiconductor, 13 (8) (1992),463.