High-Speed Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers

In this study high-speed oxide-confined VCSELs were fabricated and characterized.Complete fabrication processes for top-emitting self-aligned and non-self-aligned 850nmand 980nm high-speed VCSELs were developed. A complete fabrication process forbottom-emitting non-self-aligned flip-chip bonded 980nm high-speed VCSELs wasdeveloped. Some of the critical fabrication steps that affect the VCSEL's speed wereexamined. The effect of a heat-sinking layer on the performance of high-speed VCSELswas demonstrated for 850nm and 980nm devices. To further improve the understanding of current high-speed VCSEL performance restrictions the effect of external heating on the VCSEL's resonance frequency and damping factor was examined for top-emitting self-aligned 980nm VCSELs. Furthermore as the contacts of the self-aligned VCSELs go through annealing etching and oxidation experiments on metal systems used were performed. To better model the high-speed devices the dielectric properties of four different spin-on dielectrics were investigated.