Photon mode localization in disordered arrays of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

Coupled arrays of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers with controlled optical disorder were realized by patterning the reflectivity of the top cavity mirrors. The size of each square array element, defined by photolithography, determines the local cavity oscillation frequency and loss. Optical disorder across the array can therefore be introduced by varying the size of the lasing elements. The localization of photon modes and the array coherence were investigated as a function of the degree of disorder and the array dimensionality. We found that a higher degree of disorder leads to more localized coherent modes and consequently to broader far-field patterns. However, the effects of disorder reduce considerably as the array dimensionality increases from one to two by adding array rows, leading to more effective suppression of mode localization. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(99)03603-8].