Analysis of spatial emission structures in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with feedback of a volume Bragg grating

TL;DR

This paper studies how volume Bragg gratings influence the spatial and spectral behavior of broad-area VCSELs, revealing unique mode selection and pattern formation phenomena with robustness to external cavity deviations.

Contribution

It provides new insights into spatial and spectral properties of VCSELs with VBG feedback, highlighting differences from edge-emitter lasers and analyzing pattern robustness.

Findings

Wavelength locking achieved with VBG feedback

On-axis solitons transition to off-axis lasing states beyond threshold

Pattern formation shows robustness to cavity deviations

Abstract

We investigate the spatial and spectral properties of broad-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL) with frequency-selective feedback by a volume Bragg grating (VBG). We demonstrate wavelength locking similar to the case of edge-emitters but the spatial mode selection is different from the latter. On-axis spatial solitons obtained at threshold give way to off-axis extended lasing states beyond threshold. The investigations focus on a self-imaging external cavity. It is analyzed how deviations from the self-imaging condition affect the pattern formation and a certain robustness of the phenomena is demonstrated.