850 nm vertical cavity surface-emitting laser arrays

To improve the wire bonding and homogeneous injecting currents, this paper proposes a Vertical Cavity Surface-emitting Laser (VCSEL) array with a non-closed structure. In this structure, a non-closed groove is etched to form a mesa for simplifying the processing and reducing the damage of devices. The 850 nm VCSEL arrays (including 2×2, 3×3 and 4×4 array devices) with the non-closed type top emission structures are tested and analyzed. Results show that the continuous output powers are up to 80, 140 and 480 mW at room temperature, threshold currents are 0.15, 0.25 and 0.4 A, and the far-field divergence angles in parallel and vertical directions are 9° and 9.6°, 13.5° and 14.4°, 15° and 14.4°, respectively. In the context of a pulse width of 50 μs and a pulse repetition rate of 100 Hz, the maximum output powers are 90, 318 and 1279 mW and the threshold currents are 0.2, 0.5 and 0.7 A, respectively. The power curves of chips are tested before and after packaged. The result shows that the heat saturation current of the chip after packaged is much higher than that of the chip before packaged, which suggests that good packaging can improve the cooling efficiency and reduce the effect of internal heating on the device performance.