Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Abstract

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (“VCSELs”) and VCSEL arrays are disclosed. In one aspect, a surface-emitting laser includes a grating layer having a sub-wavelength grating to form a resonant cavity with a reflective layer for a wavelength of light to be emitted from a light-emitting layer and an aperture layer disposed within the resonant cavity. The VCSEL includes a charge carrier transport layer disposed between the grating layer and the light-emitting layer. The transport layer has a gap adjacent to the sub-wavelength grating and a spacer region between the gap and the light-emitting layer. The spacer region and gap are dimensioned to be substantially transparent to the wavelength. The aperture layer directs charge carriers to enter a region of the light-emitting layer adjacent to an aperture in the aperture layer and the aperture confines optical modes to be emitted from the light-emitting layer.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.