INCREASED FIBER COMMUNICATIONS BANDWIDTH FROM A RESONANT-CAVITY LIGHT-EMITTING DIODE EMITTING AT LAMBDA=940 NM

Substrate-emitting InGaAs/AlGaAs resonant cavity light emitting diodes (RCLEDs) emitting at lambda = 940 nm have been fabricated for use in optical communications. The devices exhibit a high output efficiency, with a far-field intensity of 85 muW/Steradian from a planar surface at a current of 14 mA. The spontaneous spectrum exhibits a very narrow peak of only 5 nm width, as opposed to the 50-nm-wide peak of an 875 nm wavelength reference LED. We show that the narrow spectrum drastically reduces the effects of chromatic dispersion within a 3.37 km length of 62.5 mum core graded index multimode fiber. The resulting -3 dB frequency is 102 MHz for the RCLED and fiber system, as opposed to only 33 MHz for the chromatic dispersion limited reference device.