Recent Advances in Surface Emitting Lasers

Semiconductor-based lasers have shown to enjoy a broad range of industrial, medical, and research applications during the last three decades, including data communication, sensing, high-power micromachining, and visualization. Surface emitting lasers (SELs) are semiconductor-based laser diodes that emit light in the form of a coherent optical beam from its top surface. SELs have greater advantage than the edge emitting lasers (EELs) which emit light from the sidewall, or Light Emitting Diode (LEDs) which emit light from the sidewalls and the top surface. These include high-quality high-power circular laser beam with narrow divergence, emission wavelength stability at higher temperatures, and ability to easily assemble, package, and test large 2D arrays, all of which lead to a lower total manufacturing cost. In this presentation, recent advances in Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) along with some of their notable applications are introduced. These include VCSELs that emit light both in the visible and infrared wavelength range and can produce output power ranging from a few milliwatts to tens of watts.