Implant-Defined 3 $\times$ 3 In-Phase Coherently Coupled Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers Array

Abstract

Two-dimensional in-phase coherently coupled vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) array with high beam quality was fabricated by proton implantation. Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) current spreading layer was employed to improve the uniformity of the injection current. This makes a coherent array to operate in in-phase mode even in a relatively larger scale. The appropriate thickness of ITO current spreading layer was obtained by experiment (80 nm). The procedure of proton implantation defined array is considerably simple and low cost. A 3 × 3 in-phase coherently coupled array with 2.4° (1.28 × D.L.) of lobe beamwidth was achieved. It sufficiently demonstrates the advantages of the high beam quality of the in-phase coherently coupled arrays. The output power of the array was up to 4.5 mw under pulse-wave condition.