Widely tunable 1060-nm high-contrast grating VCSEL

Abstract

We report monolithic, electrically-pumped tunable 1060-nm VCSELs with a high-contrast grating metastructure as the highly reflective tunable mirror. Single-mode lasing with CW operation is demonstrated up to 85°C providing output power larger than 1.3 mW at room temperature. A continuous tuning range of 35 nm is achieved with microelectromechanical actuation of the high-contrast grating mirror, showing a 3-dB bandwidth of 667 kHz in the tuning response. This is promising for the realization of a high-speed and widely wavelength tunable source with cost-effective fabrication processes, for applications in optical coherence tomography, LIDAR, and wavelength-division-multiplexed optical communication.