Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers with Subwavelength High Index Contrast Surface Grating Reflectors

We present vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) with reduced physical dimensions for applications in chip-to-chip and on-chip optical interconnects. We compare and contrast computer optical simulations of various VCSEL designs that employ reflectors composed of combinations of monolithic subwavelength high refractive index contrast surface gratings (MHCGs) and semiconductor or dielectric distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). We experimentally demonstrate VCSELs with combination MHCG and DBR reflectors and analyze the potential of these low dimensional VCSELs for application in photonic integrated circuits.