Monolithic vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with thermally tunable birefringence

Abstract

The birefringence splitting in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers offers an opportunity for spintronic-based high-frequency operation. By means of coupling of the carrier spin in the active region with the photons of the laser mode, the device can be excited to oscillations in the degree of circular polarization with a frequency corresponding to the birefringence splitting. On-chip frequency tunability of those oscillations is desirable for future applications. By asymmetric current-induced heating using the elasto-optic effect, we demonstrate a reversible tuning of the birefringence splitting of 45 GHz with less than 3 dB output power penalty.