Polarization control of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers by a birefringent metal/semiconductor polarizer terminating a distributed Bragg reflector

Abstract

We propose a polarization controlled vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) using a birefringent metal/semiconductor polarizer on a distributed Bragg reflector. Theoretically, we found that the proposed concept can provide an extremely large polarization selectivity at the resonant cavity wavelength by adjusting the phase condition between two polarization states. Experimentally, we have demonstrated a 0.98 /spl mu/m InGaAs/GaAs VCSEL with an Au/GaAs polarizer exhibiting a fairly good polarization control and maintaining low thresholds.