Indium tin oxide transparent electrodes for broad area top-emitting vertical cavity lasers fabricated using a single lithography step

• IEEE Photonics Technology Letters

We report for the first time top-emitting buried oxide vertical cavity lasers using transparent indium tin oxide electrodes. Our process enables broad-area InAlGaAs VCSELs to be fabricated in a single lithography step, thus allowing the fast turn-around time necessary for evaluating VCSEL epitaxial materials. The ITO contacts attain a peak transmission of 96%, a specific contact resistance of 10-5 O·cm2, and a sheet resistivity of 2.5×10-4 O·cm. Under room temperature CW pumping, the devices exhibit a minimum threshold current density of 1.2 kA/cm2 at a wavelength of 801 mm, and have a maximum light output power of 5.2 mW.

citation

Chua, C. L. ; Thornton, R. L. ; Treat, D. W. ; Yang, V. K. ; Dunnrowicz, C.C. Indium tin oxide transparent electrodes for broad area top-emitting vertical cavity lasers fabricated using a single lithography step. IEEE Photonics Technology Letters. 1997 May; 9(5): 551-553.