CHARACTERISTICS OF SINGLE-DIMENSIONAL AND 2-DIMENSIONAL PHASE COUPLED ARRAYS OF VERTICAL CAVITY SURFACE EMITTING GAAS-ALGAAS LASERS

Two-dimensional arrays of 3 x 3 vertical cavity surface emitting GaAs-AlGaAs lasers with 7-mu-m center spacing are described. The lasers were grown by molecular beam epitaxy and contain one grown GaAs-AlAs mirror under the active layer and a second, thermally deposited, high reflectivity, SiO2-Si mirror on top of the epitaxial layer. The array has a 295 K threshold of 90 mA, corresponding to 10 mA per laser. The individual lasers in the array have Gaussian beam profiles both spatially in the near field and angularly in the far field. When all of the lasers in the array are operating in a coupled manner the emission exhibits a lobed far-field pattern with a 5-degrees separation in the direction parallel to the contact edge, and a 2.5-degrees separation perpendicular to the contact edge.