Abstract

Grating-coupled-surface-emitting lasers are well suited for ton chip optical coupling between lasers and ultimately high power 2-D coherent laser arrays. The state of the art of surface emitting lasers has progressed rapidly over the past several years but to this point has not matched the device performance capable from edge emitting lasers. We discuss the fabrication of surface-emitting lasers with low threshold current densities and high differential efficiencies comparable with those of edge-emitting lasers. In addition the uniformity of the device performance is excellent across a 1-cm wafer, approaching that required to coherently couple large 2-D arrays of surface emitters to high output powers.

© 1990 Optical Society of America