Air-Cavity Dominant Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers
- Technology Benefits
- Extended wavelength tuning range
- Technology Application
- light detection and ranging (LIDAR), optical coherence tomography (OCT)optical fiber communication applications.
- Detailed Technology Description
- None
- Others
-
Additional Technologies by these Inventors
Tech ID/UC Case
27577/2017-138-0
Related Cases
2017-138-0
- *Abstract
-
Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) have many applications, including potential use in optical coherence tomography (OCT) and optical fiber communications. Both fields are rapidly growing and there is a need for widely-tunable VCSELs than can be used as the wavelength-swept sources in OCT. One technique that could increase the tuning range of a VCSEL would be to use an engineered semiconductor-air- coupling (SAC) interface.
However, a concern is that engineering the SAC region in a tunable VCSEL would cause the laser threshold to sharply increase. Therefore, researchers have not pursued that approach. Instead, researchers have applied an anti-reflection (AR) layer at the semiconductor-air interface or modified the layer orders in the top distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) to extend the tuning range. However, the AR layer has to be one quarter-lambda thick with refractive index close to the square root of the product of the semiconductor refractive index and the refractive index of air.
Researchers have developed a novel layer structure for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) which further enable its use for widely wavelength-swept coherent light sources and multiple-wavelength VCSEL arrays. This design has recently led to a record-breaking tuning range for electrically-pumped VCSELs.
- *Principal Investigator
-
Name: Connie Chang-Hasnain
Department:
Name: Kevin Taylor Cook
Department:
Name: PengFei Qiao
Department:
- Country/Region
- USA
