Finite Element Simulation of the Optical Modes of Semiconductor Lasers

TL;DR

This paper uses finite element simulations to analyze optical modes in semiconductor lasers, specifically SLOW and VCSEL types, comparing computational results with experimental and simplified models.

Contribution

It introduces a finite element approach for modeling optical near fields in different semiconductor laser structures, including boundary condition handling.

Findings

Finite element simulations match experimental data for SLOW laser near fields.

Comparison shows good agreement between 3D simulations and 1D mode calculations for VCSEL.

Method effectively captures the influence of device design parameters on optical modes.

Abstract

In the present article we investigate optical near fields in semiconductor lasers. We perform finite element simulations for two different laser types, namely a super large optical waveguide (SLOW) laser, which is an edge emitter, and a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). We give the mathematical formulation of the different eigenvalue problems that arise for our examples and explain their numerical solution with the finite element method. Thereby, we also comment on the usage of transparent boundary conditions, which have to be applied to respect the exterior environment, e.g., the very large substrate and surrounding air. For the SLOW laser we compare the computed near fields to experimental data for different design parameters of the device. For the VCSEL example a comparison to simplified 1D mode calculations is carried out.