Spin-controlled switching of lasing circular polarizations in (110)-oriented VCSELs

Nobuhide Yokota; Kazuhiro Ikeda; Shinji Koh; Hitoshi Kawaguchi

doi:10.1117/12.873377

21 February 2011 Spin-controlled switching of lasing circular polarizations in (110)-oriented VCSELs

Nobuhide Yokota, Kazuhiro Ikeda, Shinji Koh, Hitoshi Kawaguchi

Proceedings Volume 7937, Ultrafast Phenomena in Semiconductors and Nanostructure Materials XV; 79370T (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.873377
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2011, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

We discuss high speed switching of lasing circular polarizations in VCSELs by optical spin injection. We conducted polarization- and time-resolved measurements of two consecutive lasing outputs from a (110)-InGaAs/GaAs VCSEL at 77 K with different time delays between the two optical excitations for alternately up- and down-spin electrons. 1-GHz switching of lasing circular polarizations has been demonstrated with taking advantage of the long electron spin relaxation time τ_s in (110)-QWs. Rate equation analysis closely reproduced the measured results and showed that shortening the carrier lifetime τ_c while preserving the long τ_s is a straightforward solution for faster switching since the residual unpolarized electrons limit the switching speed. Thus, we dry-etched the (110)-QWs into micro-posts to introduce the surface non-radiative recombination using ECR-RIE, and investigated the τ_c and τ_s. Spin-polarized carriers were optically excited in square posts with different sizes from 0.5 μm to 30 μm, and the time evolutions of two orthogonal circular polarization components of photoluminescence were measured by a streak camera. The long τ _s (~1.3 ns) in the (110)-QW wafer is found to be preserved even when the sidewall boundaries with fast surface recombination are introduced and the τ_c is drastically shortened. The same rate equation analysis indicated that spin-controlled VCSELs with such (110)-QW micro-posts will exhibit faster switching thanks to the shortened τ_c and preserved long τ_s. In particular, 20-GHz switching is expected with 0.5-μm posts, although the threshold pulse energy per unit area becomes 2.9 times larger than that for 1-GHz switching without post structure.

Citation Download Citation

Nobuhide Yokota, Kazuhiro Ikeda, Shinji Koh, and Hitoshi Kawaguchi "Spin-controlled switching of lasing circular polarizations in (110)-oriented VCSELs", Proc. SPIE 7937, Ultrafast Phenomena in Semiconductors and Nanostructure Materials XV, 79370T (21 February 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.873377

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KEYWORDS

Switching

Polarization

Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

Electrons

Quantum wells

Picosecond phenomena

Spin polarization

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