Computing optical modes for VCSEL device simulation

Abstract

The authors discuss the comprehensive computation of optical modes in the context of physics-based semiconductor laser device simulation. In this approach a generic frequency domain finite element (FE) formulation of the dielectric optical resonator problem is used. The FE expansion of a realistic vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) device yields very large sparse generalised complex non-Hermitian eigenproblems. In the course of solving the device equations self-consistently over the entire operation range of the laser device, a sequence of many such large eigenproblems has to be solved. A distinct property of this sequence is that each eigenproblem can be seen as the perturbed version of the former in the sequence. This fact is exploited by using an iterative numerical method that uses the solution of one eigenproblem to solve the next.