A complete theoretical approach to the electromagnetic properties of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) is presented. The Maxwell's equations are solved by using the local mode expansion technique. The transverse components of the electromagnetic field in each layer of the cavity are expressed in terms of complete set of orthogonal local modes. Matching these components at each boundary yields the vectorial transform matrix of the structure. The cavity eigenmodes are found from the condition of vanishing in-coming amplitudes. Results for the characterization of laser modes include modal frequencies, threshold gains and eigenmode light-field vector patterns. The influence of scattering losses on threshold gain values as a function of VCSEL radius, model order and number of dielectric layers are discussed.
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