Silicon oxide-planarized single-mode 850-nm VCSELs with TO package for 10 Gb/s data transmission

In this letter, we report on an alternative method to fabricate a high-efficiency planar-type oxide-confined 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). The planarized process of VCSELs was to use the silicon oxide as the buried layer. As a result, these devices with an oxidized aperture of 3 μm in diameter exhibit a single-transverse mode behavior throughout the operation current range. In addition, the static characteristics of VCSELs at 300 K include a threshold current of 0.52 mA corresponding to a threshold voltage of 2.2 V, a maximum single transverse-mode light output power of 1.13 mW at 4.5 mA, and an external differential quantum efficiency of 35 %. On the other hand, this TO-packaged planar-type 850-nm VCSEL for back-to-back test shows a wide open along with symmetric eye diagram and could also pass the 10 Gb/s mask as operating at 10.3 Gb/s and 4 mA. Furthermore, the VCSEL can still keep the eye diagram open and symmetric after the 66-m multi-mode fiber transmission and has a power penalty of 6.6 dB because of fiber dispersion for 10.3 Gb/s data rate at a bit error rate of 10^-11. These results confirm the excellent high-speed performance of SiO_x-planarized VCSELs as compared to the polyimide-planarized VCSELs.