Green monolithic II–VI vertical‐cavity surface‐emitting laser operating at room temperature

Abstract

Abstract The realization of a monolithic all II–VI‐based vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) for the green spectral region is reported. Optically pumped lasing operation was achieved up to room temperature using a planar VCSEL structure. Taking advantage of distributed Bragg‐reflectors based on MgS/Zn(Cd)Se superlattices as the low‐refractive index material and ZnS 0.06 Se 0.94 layers as the high‐index material with a refractive index contrast of Δn = 0.6, a quality factor exceeding Q = 2000 is reached by using only 18 Bragg periods for the bottom DBR and 15 Bragg periods for the top DBR. The threshold power density is 0.32 MW/cm 2 at a temperature of 10 K (emission wavelength 498.5 nm) and 1.9 MW/cm 2 at room temperature (emission wavelength 502.3 nm). (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)