Abstract

We report the first electrically injected AlGaInP visible vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs). To our knowledge, these devices are the first quantum well VCSELs that lase at the second quantized state (n=2) transition. This has important implications for VCSELs emitting below 630 nm The structures consist of a thick 8-wave (AlyGa_1-y)InP optical cavity active region surrounded by AlGaAs distributed Bragg reflectors. Pulsed room temperature lasing is observed at wavelengths from 639 to 661 nm. At 650 nm, a current threshold (Ith) of 30 mA at 2.7 V is measured with peak output power exceeding 3.3 mW for test devices with 20 pm emitting diameters.

© 1993 Optical Society of America