Abstract

Tunable vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSEL) have a wide variety of potential applications in optical communications and instrumentation. To date, tunable VCSEL's have relied on temperature tumng[1-2], or external cavities[3]. The largest tuning was from a red shift induced by heating, which is undesirable.- In this paper we present, for the first time, a tunable VCSEL structure which uses a monolithic movable mirror to change the lasing wavelength. We present record tuning of 15 nm, including both red and blue shifts, using a tuning voltage of 5.7 volts.

© 1995 Optical Society of America