High-power VCSEL's:: Single devices and densely packed 2-D-arrays

We report on vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL's) and laser arrays providing high output powers in the 980-nm wavelength regime. Extensive investigations on size scaling behavior of single top- and bottom-emitting devices concerning fundamental electrooptical and thermal properties show limits of attainable output characteristics. Maximum experimentally achieved continuous-wave (CW) optical output powers at room temperature are 180 and 350 mW for top- and bottom-emitting VCSEL's, respectively. Detailed analysis on the thermal interaction between closely spaced elements have been carried out to describe the thermally induced power limitations of two-dimensional arrays. Fabricated heat sunk bottom-emitting arrays of 23 elements and 40-mu m aperture size of individual elements show output powers of 0.56 W CW at room temperature and 0.8 W actively cooled, resulting in 0.33 kW/cm(2) and 0.47 kW/cm(2) maximum spatially averaged optical power density, respectively.