Reliability and manufacturability of 850 nm 50 Gbit/s PAM-4 vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

摘要

Reliability and characterization of 850 nm 50 Gbit/s PAM-4 vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are presented. These VCSELs have demonstrated a threshold current of 0.8 mA and a slope efficiency of 0.95 W/A. The maximum optical output power of 9 mW is achieved at a thermal rollover current of 13.5 mA. The optical power is up to 5 mW and the -3dB bandwidth is in excess of 17 GHz at 25 ℃ and 6 mA bias. The current density and power dissipation density are low to 15 kA/cm~2 and 25.5 kJ/cm~2, respectively. The standard deviations of photoluminescence peak wavelength and Fabry-Perot cavity wavelength of epitaxial wafer are 0.75 nm and 2.2 nm, respectively. After 1500 h of the reliability study no degradation or failures of the 22 VCSELs are observed at 80 °C in a heating chamber at a bias of 6 mA. Considering high optical absorption of DX center, the impurity doping concentration of 3 pairs of N-DBRs that were adjacent to active region are optimized. The additional SiO_2 passivation layer not only can provide moisture resistance but also provide a photon lifetime tuning. The output power increases by optimizing thickness of SiO_2 layer reducing power dissipation density. Single thin oxide aperture is employed by slowing down the oxidizing rate and improving temperature during a VCSEL oxidation process to thereby reduce stress concentration of an oxidation. Single thin oxide aperture may limit the -3dB bandwidth, but the modulation characteristics can be improved by adopting advanced modulation techniques such as 4-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4).