Single-mode oxide-confined VCSEL for printers and sensors

The 850nm single -mode oxide-confined VCSEL with a metal aperture as a spatial mode filter is reported The OPTALO (Optical Probing Technique for AlAs Lateral Oxidation) process was adopted to manufacture a small oxide aperture in VCSEL with high reproducibility. The combination of a metal-aperture and an oxide-aperture brought good performance to 850nm single-mode VCSEL. The fundamental transverse mode oscillation was obtained up to 4.7mW output power. The SMSR is larger than 27db. No kinks in the L-I curves were observed under -40 to 95degC temperature range. The laser beam is selectively polarized in parallel to the < 01-1 > orientation of the GaAs substrate. We also developed the 780nm single-mode VCSEL array (8x4)for laser beam printer application. The polygon scanner system incorporating this 780nm single-mode VCSEL array made it possible to achieve 2400 DPI high dense printing together with 80ppm high speed print.