Evaluation of 1.3-㎛ Wavelength VCSELs Grown by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition for 10 Gb/s Fiber Transmission

Abstract

We have evaluated a 1.3 μm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL), whose bottom mirror and central active layer were grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and whose top mirror was covered with a dielectric coating, for 10 Gb/s data transmission over single-mode fibers (SMFs). Successful demonstration of error-free transmission of the directly modulated VCSEL signals at data rate of 10 Gb/s over a 10 km-long SMF was achieved for operating temperatures from 20 °C to 60 °C up to bit-error-rate (BER) of 10 -12. The DC bias current and modulation currents are only 7 mA and 6 mA, respectively. The results indicate that the VCSEL is a good low-power consuming optical signal source for 10 GBASE Ethernet applications under controlled environments.