Polarization related properties of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

摘要

We report on the measurements of static and dynamic polarization properties of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) placed in a T-shaped external cavity. Internal losses and quantum efficiency are measured independently for the two polarization directions. The material gain is found to be isotropic. Dynamic stability of the polarization state is investigated using bit-error-rate (BER) measurements in a polarization selective link. It is shown that complete polarization stability is achieved for a difference of at least 10 cm/sup -1/ in the modal loss between the two polarization eigenstates of the device.