News Article
IQE Material Helps Push VCSEL Performance Beyond 10 Gbit/s
VCSEL optoelectronics have been enabled to produce devices operating
at 10Gbit/s minimum.
IQE, a supplier of advanced
semiconductor wafer products and wafer services to the semiconductor
industry, announced that VCSEL optoelectronic materials produced at
its Cardiff manufacturing facility have enabled researchers to
produce potentially reliable devices capable of operating at speeds
greatly in excess of 10 Gbit/s.
In an article published in this month's
Electronics Letters, Professor Anders Larsson of Sweden's Chalmers
University of Technology said: “The vertical cavity surface
emitting laser (VCSEL) emitting at 850 nm has become the laser of
choice for short reach data communication links in local and storage
area networks operating at single channel data rates up to 10 Gbit/s.
While there is a future need for even higher data rates it has been
commonly believed that VCSELs operating at rates much higher than 10
Gbit/s will have to be scaled down in size to achieve the modulation
bandwidth needed, thus operating at current densities too high for
reliable operation.”
Professor Larsson's research group at
the Photonics Laboratory at the Department of Microtechnology and
Nanoscience, Chalmers University of Technology, in Göteborg,
Sweden, has recently shown that this is not necessarily the case. By
optimising the VCSEL design with respect to differential gain,
capacitance, electrical resistance and thermal impedance, it was
demonstrated that 850 nm oxide confined VCSELs with an aperture as
large as 9 µm can achieve low threshold current, high
differential efficiency and a modulation bandwidth as large as 21
GHz. At a bias current of 6.5 mA, clear and open eyes could be
generated at bit rates up to 25 Gbit/s and an extinction ratio of 6
dB. This current corresponds to a current density of 10 kA/cm2, which
is at the level where the present 10 Gbit/s VCSEL technology
operates. This clearly indicates the potential for reliable operation
of directly modulated 850 nm VCSELs at very high data rates for
future, high capacity data communication links.
Professor Larsson went on to say that
the epitaxial material for the work was provided by IQE and the
project was supported by the European project VISIT and the Swedish
Foundation for Strategic Research.
Dr Drew Nelson, IQE's Chief
Executive, said: “The rapid growth in video and data streaming
devices and applications is driving the demand for reliable, high
speed lasers to support data rates of up to 100 GBits/s. This
important work by Professor Larsson's group using IQE's materials
demonstrates the clear, potential capabilities for VCSELs to deliver
the performance needed for a wide range of next generation video and
high speed data products.”
semiconductor wafer products and wafer services to the semiconductor
industry, announced that VCSEL optoelectronic materials produced at
its Cardiff manufacturing facility have enabled researchers to
produce potentially reliable devices capable of operating at speeds
greatly in excess of 10 Gbit/s.
In an article published in this month's
Electronics Letters, Professor Anders Larsson of Sweden's Chalmers
University of Technology said: “The vertical cavity surface
emitting laser (VCSEL) emitting at 850 nm has become the laser of
choice for short reach data communication links in local and storage
area networks operating at single channel data rates up to 10 Gbit/s.
While there is a future need for even higher data rates it has been
commonly believed that VCSELs operating at rates much higher than 10
Gbit/s will have to be scaled down in size to achieve the modulation
bandwidth needed, thus operating at current densities too high for
reliable operation.”
Professor Larsson's research group at
the Photonics Laboratory at the Department of Microtechnology and
Nanoscience, Chalmers University of Technology, in Göteborg,
Sweden, has recently shown that this is not necessarily the case. By
optimising the VCSEL design with respect to differential gain,
capacitance, electrical resistance and thermal impedance, it was
demonstrated that 850 nm oxide confined VCSELs with an aperture as
large as 9 µm can achieve low threshold current, high
differential efficiency and a modulation bandwidth as large as 21
GHz. At a bias current of 6.5 mA, clear and open eyes could be
generated at bit rates up to 25 Gbit/s and an extinction ratio of 6
dB. This current corresponds to a current density of 10 kA/cm2, which
is at the level where the present 10 Gbit/s VCSEL technology
operates. This clearly indicates the potential for reliable operation
of directly modulated 850 nm VCSELs at very high data rates for
future, high capacity data communication links.
Professor Larsson went on to say that
the epitaxial material for the work was provided by IQE and the
project was supported by the European project VISIT and the Swedish
Foundation for Strategic Research.
Dr Drew Nelson, IQE's Chief
Executive, said: “The rapid growth in video and data streaming
devices and applications is driving the demand for reliable, high
speed lasers to support data rates of up to 100 GBits/s. This
important work by Professor Larsson's group using IQE's materials
demonstrates the clear, potential capabilities for VCSELs to deliver
the performance needed for a wide range of next generation video and
high speed data products.”
