Polarization switching in vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers observed at constant active region temperature

Includes bibliographical references (page 3352).Polarization switching in gain-guided, vertical-cavity, surface-emitting lasers was studied as a function of the active region temperature. We show that polarization switching occurs even when the active region temperature is kept constant during fast pulse low duty cycle operation. This temperature independent polarization switching phenomenon is explained in terms of a recently developed model

Transient response of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers of different active-region diameters

Includes bibliographical references (pages 614-615).The multimode dynamics of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with different active-region diameters was measured under subnanosecond electrical excitation (800-ps pulse duration, 100-ps risetime). The dynamics is characterized by the delayed onset of higher order modes which have a turn-on delay that is dependent on the active-region diameter and the excitation parameters. A simple model that can be used to estimate this turn-on delay for large-area devices is presented. Polarization resolved measurements show that, under this fast excitation condition, both orthogonal polarization states are isomorphic. The influence of the observed dynamics on the relative intensity noise of these devices is also discussed