Abstract

It is well known that excessive heating has serious negative effects on cw characteristics of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), most notably on their output power and overall efficiency. Thus, optimization of the device design aimed at minimizing its thermal resistance is of great practical importance. Usually, extensive numerical calculations are necessary to calculate thermal resistance of VCSELs.¹ Consequently, design optimization can be very computation intensive. We have developed a simple analytical approach,² valid for top-surface-emitting devices mounted p-side up, that allows us to perform the optimization process easily. In particular, we find a relationship between the active region and the laser-die diameters that leads to minimal thermal resistance. We also show that only a marginal improvement in thermal resistance can be expected by substrate thinning in typical proton-implanted top-surface-emitting lasers.

© 1992 Optical Society of America