VENUS: a comprehensive electro-thermo-opto VCSEL simulator

The operation of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) results from the interplay among different physical mechanisms. For this reason, even a basic VCSEL model must address the coupling of electrical injection, stimulated/spontaneous emission and optical resonances, without disregarding the strong thermal effects affecting each of these models, leading to the need of an entangled multiphysical description. With the aim to fill the present gap of advanced comprehensive VCSEL models, in this work we present our VCSEL electro-opto-thermal numerical simulator (VENUS). The paper describes the VENUS constitutive blocks and their coupling strategy. The model is then validated by comparing the most significant lasing features with experimental results.