Cryogenic High-Speed Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers for Quantum Computing: A Review

Cryogenic computing such as superconducting computing and quantum computing is a promising alternative to handle the bottlenecks of computing power and power efficiency in classical high-performance computing systems. The high-speed energy-efficient data transfer between cryogenic temperature and room temperature for the superconducting quantum computing is a critical issue. The current electrical interconnect is difficult to meet the stringent requirements in the future quantum computing application with millions of qubits. The optical interconnect based on the fiber is a promising solution because the optical fiber data link has a higher modulation bandwidth, ultralow signal loss, and lower heat load. The cryogenic vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with high modulation speed and low power consumption are the potential sources for the cryogenic optical interconnect. This paper reviews the progresses on cryogenic VCSELs, including the properties of semiconductors at cryogenic temperature, structure optimization, and static and dynamic performance.