Optical Mode Engineering in Semiconductor Diode LasersCommercial Microelectronics for Defense Applications

Photonic research has a distinguished legacy beginning with the invention of the semiconductor laser diode 63 years ago that has enabled countless applications entrenched into modern society. Today we still mostly rely on Gaussian modes emitted from semiconductor lasers with often the objective of reducing the number of lasing modes. We discuss control of index-guided and anti-guided optical modes in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) and coherently coupled 2-dimensional laser arrays using control of refractive index and spatially localized gain. Possible applications of non-Gaussian VCSEL modes from coherent VCSEL arrays will be highlighted.

Speaker: Kent Choquette, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign