Abstract

Grating coupled surface emitting lasers (SELs) are desirable for high power applications due to their large emitting areas. The advantages of these kinds of optical sources in comparison with the conventional edge-emitting lasers have caused an interest in geometries to fully develop their potentials. Among these geometries, circular grating SELs (CGSELs) have additional advantage of producing a low divergence circularly symmetric beam. Recently, a nove1 CGSEL with the emission from the center has been reported [1] . The schematic view of this new geometry is illustrated in Fig.1. Surface emission is produced by the presence of second-order circular grating at the center of the structure. The annular active region surrounding the second-order grating provides optical gain, and the first-order circular grating section which encloses both the annular region and the central region is largely responsible for producing the optical feedback. The most obvious advantage of this new design in comparison with the previous CGSELs is that the emitting region is located at the center of the laser.

© 1996 Optical Society of America