We demonstrate a short-wavelength hybrid-cavity vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) heterogeneously integrated on silicon. A GaAs-based "half-VCSEL" has been attached to a dielectric distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) on a silicon wafer using ultra-thin divinylsiloxane-bis-benzocyclobutene (DVS-BCB) adhesive bonding, thereby creating a cavity with the standing-wave optical field exten...

Solid-state lasers pumped by high-power two-dimensional arrays of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) were investigated. Both end-pumping and side-pumping schemes of Nd:YAG lasers with high power kW-class 808 nm VCSEL pump modules were implemented. For one application 10 mJ blue laser pulses were obtained from a frequencydoubled actively Q-switched VCSEL-array dual side-pumped Nd:Y...

A vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) is a diode laser whose optical cavity is formed by growing or depositing DBR mirror stacks that sandwich an active gain region. The resulting short cavity supports lasing into a single longitudinal mode normal to the wafer, making these devices ideal for a multitude of applications, ranging fiom high-speed communication to high-power sources (fro...

We demonstrate, both theoretically and experimentally, a pseudo-random, two-dimensional optical phased array (OPA) concept based on tandem injection locking of 64-element vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays. A low cavity-Q VCSEL design resulted in an injection locking optical power of less than 1 μW per VCSEL, providing large OPA scaling potential. Tandem injection locking of ...

We have studied experimentally effects of two-frequency optical injection on a multimode vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). The injected signal comes from another VCSEL. Polarization switching (PS) with and without frequency locking occurs for relatively small frequency detuning. Outside the regime of polarization switching, the VCSEL demonstrates two types of instabilities. The in...

We report the experimental demonstration of tunable ultraslow light using a 1.55 um vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) at room temperature. By varying the bias current around lasing threshold, we achieve tunable delay of an intensity modulated signal input. Delays up to 100 ps are measured for a broadband signal with modulation frequency of 2.8 GHz. With a VCSEL design optimized for...

We report on a simple method with a high spectral and spatial resolution for mapping variations in the cavity resonance of a plano-planar broad-area laser based on frequency-selective feedback. The demonstration experiment uses a vertical-cavity surface-emitting-laser (VCSEL), in which growth induced inhomogeneities are of particular importance. It relies only on a standalone laser with a narro...

A compact, passively Q-switched Nd:YAG laser utilizing a Cr4+:YAG saturable absorber, is end-pumped by the focused emission from an 804 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) array. By changing the VCSEL operating current, we demonstrated 2x adjustability in the laser output pulse energy, from 9 mJ to 18 mJ. This energy variation was attributed to changes in the angular distribution ...

This paper describes the fabrication of a novel type of pressure sensor based on optical feedback in a Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL). The detection mechanism of the sensor is based on a displacement measurement through self-mixing interferometry in the laser cavity. The use of unpackaged VCSELs enables the embedding in thin flexible optical foils which results in an integrated ...

We demonstrate a Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) phase methodology to estimate resonant wavelengths in Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity structures. We validate the phase method in a conventional Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) structure using a transfer-matrix method, and compare results with a FDTD reflectance method. We extend this approach to a Sub-Wavelength Grating (SWG) and a P...