Nonpolar III-nitride vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers incorporating an ion implanted aperture

We report on our recent progress in improving the performance of nonpolar III-nitride vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) by using an Al ion implanted aperture and employing a multi-layer electron-beam evaporated ITO intracavity contact. The use of an ion implanted aperture improves the lateral confinement over SiNx apertures by enabling a planar ITO design, while the multi-layer ITO contact minimizes scattering losses due to its epitaxially smooth morphology. The reported VCSEL has 10 QWs, with a 3 nm quantum well width, 1 nm barriers, a 5 nm electron-blocking layer, and a 6.95-λ total cavity thickness. These advances yield a single longitudinal mode 406 nm nonpolar VCSEL with a low threshold current density (∼16 kA/cm2), a peak output power of ∼12 μW, and a 100% polarization ratio. The lasing in the current aperture is observed to be spatially non-uniform, which is likely a result of filamentation caused by non-uniform current spreading, lateral optical confinement, contact resistance, and absorption loss.