Abstract

Despite recent demonstrations of high output powers in broad-area surface-emitting lasers (SELs),¹ progress in the modulation band widths for small area single-mode devices have been slow. Reducing device sizes lead to increased resistances that accentuate the severe joule heating, limiting both cw output power and modulation responses.² In: this talk we discuss design optimization techniques that self-consistently account for thermal effects and provide insights into the limiting factors and tradeoffs for both high power and high speed operation. We also report measurements on bulk GaAs devices employing these design considerations with simultaneous CW output powers exceeding 3 mW and modulation bandwidths up to 9.3 GHz. These values rival the best reported results of each quantity independently for devices of similar dimensions.

© 1993 Optical Society of America