Polarization properties of a vertical cavity surface emitting laser using a fractional layer superlattice gain medium

Abstract

We investigate the polarization properties of a vertical cavity surface emitting laser that uses an (Al0.5Ga0.5As)1/2(GaAs)1/2 fractional-layer superlattice (FLS) as an anisotropic gain medium. The anisotropy in the gain enables us to both control and switch the polarization state of the optically pumped lasing output. We obtain room-temperature lasing for wavelengths from 690 to 720 nm. The output is linearly polarized and the polarization direction is fixed, either parallel or perpendicular to the FLS layers. By tuning the cavity resonance wavelength, we demonstrate high contrast switching between two orthogonal linear polarization states in the FLS surface emitting laser.