Numerical study on multimode optical fiber link considering higher-order VCSEL modes

High-frequency discrete and distinct mode-beating noise (MBN) spectra are an anomalous phenomenon observed in the related intensity noise spectrum from the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL), which reveals strong correlation with fine-splitting transverse modes caused by non-circular emission aspect of the VCSEL with imperfect true-roundness. Such a phenomenon is demonstrated for the first time, which seriously degrades the transmission performance of high-speed and broad-band encoding data carried by the multi-mode (MM) VCSEL biased under a large DC bias. In this work, the 4-ary quadrature-amplitude modulation (4-QAM) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and the non-return-to-zero on–off keying (NRZ-OOK) transmissions with the direct modulation of different 850-nm MM VCSELs, as suffered from the MBN-induced notches of the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) spectra, are characterized under their high-level lasing conditions with multi-mode numbers. The significant SNR degradation on the receiving and decoding performances caused by the cross-correlation between MBN and data spectra is also examined by tuning the lensed fiber along the transverse (X/Y)-axis of the VCSEL (perpendicular to the surface normal) when collimating the output beam, which finds the disorderly shifted MBN spectra, as attributed to the collection of light emitted from the overlapped gain region of different transverse modes. In contrast, the MBN reveals invariant spectral features while the lensed fiber is either back-and-forth tuning along the vertical (Z)-axis (parallel with the surface normal) or tilting its angles from the surface normal under the same horizontal position and distance concerning the MM VCSEL. Such MM VCSEL exhibits several MBN spikes to decay the SNRs of NRZ-OOK and QAM OFDM data encoded around 21 and 34 GHz. For other MM VCSELs with reducing numbers of their transverse lasing modes and deforming roundness of their circular emitting aspects, the corresponding MBN spectral peaks can also be respectively observed at 14/17/24 GHz and 4.5/10.5/13 GHz to degrade the SNRs of the encoded data at such frequencies. Even though pre-emphasized encoding technology is employed, such an MBN effect is strongly correlated with the asymmetric circular aspect of the VCSEL with a degraded roundness ratio, which still affects the data modulation performance of the MM VCSEL for data center communication.

Remarkable progress made in performance characteristics and reliability of high-speed (> 10 GHz) 850-nm multi-mode (MM) oxide-confined vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) during the last decade has led them to find applications in space satellite systems. The main advantage of deploying high-speed VCSELs in space satellites over directly modulated 850-nm edge emitting lasers is the absence of COMD (catastrophic optical mirror damage). In recent years, leading VCSEL manufacturers introduced higher speed (~ 20 GHz or 25 Gbps) VCSELs with encouraging characteristics. However, little has been reported on reliability and failure modes of these state-of-the-art VCSELs although it is crucial to understand failure modes and degradation mechanisms in these VCSELs through physics of failure investigation and subsequently develop VCSELs that exceed lifetime requirements for space satellite systems. For the present study, we performed short-term and long-term accelerated life-tests on 25 Gbps oxide-confined MM VCSELs to study reliability of these devices. Our goal is to extract credible reliability model parameters (thermal activation energy and current exponent factor) from these life-tests to determine suitability of these lasers for future space satellite systems. We also performed failure mode analysis on VCSELs at different stages of degradation using various techniques. We employed nondestructive techniques including optical beam induced current (OBIC) and electron beam induced current (EBIC) techniques as well as destructive techniques including focused ion beam (FIB) and high-resolution TEM techniques. Our detailed reliability and failure mode analysis results are reported along with our understanding on the physical origin of degradation in high-speed VCSELs with strained InGaAs quantum wells.

Persistent efforts on developing advanced and complex data algorithms to enable the vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) for data beyond 100-Gbit/s has been reviewed in this paper. This endeavor not only elevates the bit rate of the IEEE802.3 standards for data center applications but also to initiate the unification of data format for wired and wireless network coverage. To date, the highest allowable data rates of the single-VCSEL-based optical link are 80 Gbit/s for the NRZ-OOK format under back-to-back (BtB) transmission 168 Gbit/s for the PAM-4 format over 150-m OM5 MMF, and the 224 Gbit/s for the QAM-OFDM format at BtB case. For the high-level complex data-format transmission with rigorous demand on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), this work demonstrates the most up-to-date 32-ray quadrature amplitude modulation generalized frequency division multiplexing (32-QAM GFDM) data algorithm with optimized amplitude and K value for encoding the multimode (MM) VCSEL. To achieve the higher spectral-usage efficiency based on the SNR spectrum for maximal transmission data rate, the bit-loading discrete multi-tone (DMT) technique is implemented by rearranging each subcarrier to the appropriate QAM levels. By utilizing 32-QAM GFDM and bit-loading DMT, the maximal data rate in the BtB case could respectively achieve 119.5 Gbit/s and 130 Gbit/s when operating the MM VCSEL at 55 °C. The transmission capacity of the VCSEL operated at 55 °C would decrease to 93.8 Gbit/s for 32-QAM GFDM and 83 Gbit/s for bit-loading DMT after propagating through OM5 MMF with modal dispersion.

Short-reach optical interconnects among massive serves in data centers have attracted extensive research recently. Increasing capacity, cost and power efficiency as well as wavelength switching between data center network nodes are still key challenges for current optical interconnects. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the real-time inter-mode optical wavelength switching technique, for high-speed wavelength flexible data center interconnects. A 10 Gbit/s 1 550 nm single mode vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) is optically injected and used to control a 10 Gbit/s multimode VCSEL carrier at 850 nm. Results show that a clearly open eye diagram is achieved at back-to-back analysis, implying a successful wavelength switch and error-free operation at 10 Gbit/s. A fully optical wavelength conversion of a multimode VCSEL operation at 850 nm using a single mode VCSEL subject to external optical injection at 1 550 nm is reported. This work opens new perspectives towards the development of a cost effective high-speed real-time inter-band wavelength switching technique between servers and network devices operating at different transmission windows at network nodes, for current and future optical interconnects.

Real-time wavelength switching and routing at key access network nodes is an emerging fundamental functionality requirement for transparent content resolution and wavelength assignment towards better utilization of network resources under dynamic traffic patterns. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the first vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL)-based broadband switch for ultra-wide wavelength data traffic routing in Datacom. An 850 nm multimode VCSEL is directly modulated with 8.5 Gbps data and successfully transmitted error free over 100.3 m of OM3 multimode fibre link. At the integration node, the received data signal is used to drive a second VCSEL at 1550 nm, and forwarded over a second network link over 24.7 km of single mode fibre. We therefore achieve the first reported all-optical, real-time, inter-band wavelength switch to C-band. By exploiting wavelength tuneability, the 1550 nm VCSEL-based forwarding node is tuned to over 3.2 nm spectral range, for ultra-wide data routing over the second network link. A receiver sensitivity of -14.28 dBm of the converted signal is achieved at back-to-back analysis at the integration node. An additional penalty of 2.72 dB is introduced over the 24.7 km of single mode fibre transmission link. This work offers a viable enabling development technology for broadband wavelength converters for application real-time wavelength routing in the access network, to address content resolution and wavelength assignment problem for current and future Datacom.

A theoretical study of single and multimode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) subject to pseudorandom modulation of the current at a rate of 10 Gb/s is performed. Eye diagrams, probability density functions of the power at the decision time, averaged turn-on delay, and timing jitter are analyzed for different values of the on- and off-state currents. Bit sequences where errors occur are identified. Extensive simulations have been performed to obtain the bit-error rate (BER) for the back-to-back configuration. We find that the BER performance of single-mode VCSELs is better than the one obtained with multimode VCSELs when the off-state current is smaller than the threshold current. The same result is obtained when the off-state current is larger than the threshold value, providing that the on-state current is large enough. However, BER in single-mode VCSELs is greater than in multimode VCSELs when the off-state current is equal to the threshold current. BER performance is also better for multimode VCSELs when the off-state current is larger than the threshold value, if the on-state current is small enough.

The dependence of the mode partition noise (MPN) and the power penalty associated with it can be measured from the source spectral width. Our findings show that there is strong dependence of the carrier lifetime on the bit error rate degradation caused by MPN on the spectral width of the vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). VCSELs with smaller spectral width (shorter carrier lifetime) exhibited smaller MPN induced power penalty. We found that the theoretical calculation of the power penalties caused by MPN from the carrier lifetime and the spectral width is in good agreement with the measured system penalties.

A comprehensive numerical model has been applied to simulate single and multimode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with pseudorandom modulation of the current at a rate of 10 Gb/s. Eye diagrams, probability density functions of the power at the decision time, averaged turn-on delay and timing jitter are analysed for different values of the on and off-state currents. Extensive simulations have been performed to obtain the Bit Error Rate (BER). We find that the BER performance of single-mode VCSELs is better than the one obtained with multimode VCSELs when the off-state current is smaller than the threshold current and when the off-state current is larger than the threshold value, providing that the on-state current is large enough. However BER in single-mode VCSELs is greater than in multimode VCSELs when the off-state current is equal to the threshold current and when the off-state current is larger than the threshold value, if the on-state current is small enough

Free-space optical interconnects (FSOIs) utilize arrays of vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), microlenses, and photodetectors to effectively overcome the communication bottleneck caused by the poor performance of electrical interconnects. We derived a comprehensive FSOI link equation which can be used to determine the interconnect performance parameters, such as the receiver carrier-to-noise ratio. The link equation includes both optical and electrical noise components. The optical noise component is caused mainly by laser beam diffraction. We have simplified the modeling of optical noise by using the recently introduced Mode Expansion Method. The optical noise component strongly depends on the modal content of the incident VCSEL beam. The models used in the literature assume that the cross-sectional profile of the emitted laser beam resembles the fundamental Gaussian mode. Our link equation takes into account the modal structure of a multimode VCSEL beam. We have investigated the FSOI performance and we found that for each merit function there exists a single set of design parameters yielding the optimal performance. We have also found that the presence of higher-order modes negatively affects the performance. Our results show that FSOIs based on multimode VCSELs can be utilized in chip-level interconnects despite increased beam diffraction.

High-speed Optoelectronic Modules using Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSEL) coupled to Multi Mode Fibers (MMF) are a performing and low-cost solution for 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) in short-distance optical links. A complete model of the spatiotemporal behavior of multimode VCSELs, through static and dynamic response, noise, thermal effects, and its coupling to MMF has been investigated. Relative Intensity Noise shows modal dependence and can be affected by spatial filtering due to coupling and fiber propagation. Simulations permit to evaluate critical parameters, such as modulation formats, launching conditions, and operating temperature for global bandwidth and eye diagram optimization up to 10 Gb/s. Simulation results are compared to measurements on prototype optoelectronic modules.

Using transfer matrix method and TFcalc thin film design software,the reflectance spectrum of distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) and vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) are simulated.The reflectance spectra from the cavity and surface are compared with each other,thus providing the basis for white light source (WLS) optical reflectance spectrum of the VCSEL epitaxial wafer.When using WLS to characterize VCSEL wafer,it is necessary to combine the simulation results and the shape of optical reflectance spectrum to speculate the reflectance seen from the cavity.The influences of different cap layers on the reflectance of DBRs are discussed theoretically and experimentally.With a 1/4 GaAs cap layer,the reflectance reaches up to 97.8% seen from the cavity.This design can make the wavelength of the VCSEL etalon picked easily because of avoiding the influence of test noise. The active region has higher heat accumulation due to the small area and poor thermal conductivity.The characteristics of the gain spectrum of InGaAs/AlGaAs strained quantum well (QW) under different temperatures and the temperature distribution in VCSEL are simulated by Crosslight software.The gain-to-cavity wavelength detuning is used to improve the slope efficiency and the temperature stability.The temperature in active region ranges from 360 K to 370 K.The gain peak wavelength and the Fabry-Perot cavity wavelength are designed in the ranges of 829-832 nm and 845-847 nm,respectively.Epitaxial wafer with top-emitting VCSEL structure grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition is characterized.The room temperature photoluminescence peak is at 827.5 nm and the etalon cavity wavelength measured by optical reflectance is 847.7 nm,which are consistent with designed values. The oxide restricted VCSELs with 7.5 m oxide aperture are fabricated.The image of the infrared light source CCD shows that the oxide aperture is circular.A passivation layer of 120 nm SiO2 is finally deposited to insulate water vapor.The threshold current is 0.8 mA,and the maximum output power reaches up to 9 mW at 13.5 mA.The optical spectrum at 6.0 mA reveals multiple transverse modes.The center wavelength is 852.3 nm and the root mean square (RMS) spectrum width is 0.6 nm,meeting the high-speed Datacom standards.Shannon theory indicates that the maximum data rate is not only proportional to bandwidth but also related to signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).It is effective to reduce relative intensity noise and enhance the SNR by increasing output power.From the eye diagram of 25 Gbit/s on-off key VCSEL,it is demonstrated that fall time is 38.66 ps,rise time is 41.54 ps,SNR is 5.6,and jitter RMS is 1.57 ps.Clear eye opening is observed from eye diagram of 25 GBaud/s PAM-4 VCSEL,which indicates the qualified 50 Gbit/s high speed performance.

A vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) was born in Japan. The 37 years’ research and developments opened up various applications including datacom, sensors, optical interconnects, spectroscopy, optical storages, printers, laser displays, laser radar, atomic clock and high power sources. A lot of unique features have been already proven, such as low power consumption, a wafer level testing and so on. The market of VCSELs has been growing up rapidly and they are now key devices in local area networks based on multi-mode optical fibers. Optical interconnections in data centers and supercomputers are attracting much interest. In this paper, the advances on VCSEL photonics will be reviewed. We present the high-speed modulation of VCSELs based on a coupled cavity structure. For further increase in transmission capacity per fiber, the wavelength engineering of VCSEL arrays is discussed, which includes the wavelength stabilization and wavelength tuning based on a micro-machined cantilever structure. We also address a lateral integration platform and new functions, including high-resolution beam scanner, vortex beam creation and large-port free space wavelength selective switch with a Bragg reflector waveguide.

Random source is important for the security of key distribution. In this paper, a novel secure key distribution scheme based on unidirectional injection of vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) system is proposed. In the proposed scheme, a chaotic signal without time delay signature is generated by a VCSEL subject to unidirectional optical injection, which is regarded as a master laser. The chaotic signal generated by the master VCSEL is further injected into two slave VCSELs to obtain synchronized bandwidth-enhanced chaotic signals. After that, by sampling, quantizing and XOR operation on the two synchronized chaotic signals, two key streams can be obtained. Based on the well-known spin-flip model, the time delay signature of chaotic signals generated by master VCSEL and the synchronization performance between the master VCSELs and two slave VCSELs are numerically investigated in detail. It is shown that by the unidirectional injection, the chaotic outputs can be achieved in the master VCSEL in a wide range of frequency detuning and coupling strength. More importantly, no time delay signature can be observed in the auto correlation function of the chaotic intensity time series generated by the master VCSEL. Besides, we find that high quality synchronization is achieved between the bandwidth-enhanced chaotic signals generated by two slave VCSELs under the common driving of master VCSEL. The synchronization coefficient between two slave VCSELs increases up to 0.99, and the synchronization coefficient between master VCSEL and salve VCSEL is only 0.74. Note that such a high quality synchronization between two slave VCSELs while relatively low quality synchronization between the master and slave VCSEL is conducible to ensuring the security of key distribution. In addition, the effects of tunable parameters on key bit error rate are considered, and two quantization methods are employed for comparison. Numerical simulation results show that the key bit error rate between two legitimate users is as low as 1%, and the key bit error rate between legitimate user and eavesdropper is higher than 10% in the single-threshold case; the bit error rate can even be as low as 10-6 in the double-threshold case. The influence of parameter mismatch on key bit error rate is also discussed, and it is suggested that two salve VCSELs should be finely matched to ensure low bit error rate. Finally, NIST randomness test is performed for the generated key streams. Hence, the proposed scheme enhances the security of key distribution, which is valuable for further developing the chaos communication systems.

Monolithically integrated surface gratings have proven to control the polarization of single-mode and even multimode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) very effectively. Unfortunately, up until now, the grating parameters have had to be known and realized very accurately for proper performance. The simulations and experimental results presented in this paper show in very good agreement that by changing the thickness of the cap layer of the VCSEL structure, the dependence of the polarization control on the grating parameters can be strongly reduced. With this modification, for multimode devices, we have achieved a stable polarization of all modes orthogonal to the grating grooves independent of the investigated grating period, the grating depth, and the orientation of the grating itself. The orthogonal polarization suppression ratio is, on average, 17.1 dB and exceeds 12 dB for 117 out of 120 highly multimode VCSELs. At the same time, the optimized layer design significantly reduces the diffraction in the far field, which occurs for grating periods larger than the emission wavelength of the laser

An extensive theoretical study was performed on the dynamic behavior of 850-nm-wavelength oxide-confined fundamental-mode stabilized vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), using a shallow surface relief. The surface relief is used to provide lower mirror loss for the fundamental mode, thus acting as a mode discriminator. In this way, single-mode operation at high power levels can be obtained. We utilized a comprehensive model that includes the detailed epitaxial layer structure and device geometry when calculating the optical fields and that accurately accounts for the dynamic effects of carrier density and temperature on the modal distributions. Modulation response, eye diagrams, bit error rate (BER), and relative intensity noise (RIN) were simulated and compared to the performance of VCSELs without a mode discriminator, i.e., conventional multimode VCSELs. The fundamental-mode stabilized VCSELs are associated with a higher out-coupling, which lowers the relaxation oscillation frequency and damping, and strong spatial hole burning, which induces a low-frequency roll-off in the modulation response and contributes to the damping of the relaxation oscillation at low bias. However, their dynamics is fully competitive with conventional multimode VCSELs at both 2.5 and 10 Gb/s although they exhibit a slightly higher eye closure. We only found a 0.5-dB power penalty in the BER. The RIN is enhanced, with a peak that is about 10-15 dB higher, caused by the lower damping of the relaxation oscillation. It should be noted that in the comparison we assume that all modes are equally captured from the multimode VCSEL. A mode-selective loss can severely degrade its performance.