Abstract

Recently we observed a strong reduction of spatial coherence of the emission of large-aperture vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers when they are driven by microsecond electrical pulses [Opt. Express 13, 9337 (2005)]. We study the influence of this partial spatial coherence on the propagation characteristics. The spatial decoherence manifests itself in the formation of a Gaussian far-field intensity distribution. We measure the transverse pulse profile from near to far field and see that the shape-invariant far-field regime starts after $140\mathrm{\mu }\mathrm{m}$ in the pulsed regime as opposed to several centimeters in continuous wave operation. This value matches quantitatively calculations made with a novel partially coherent propagation model without any free fitting parameters.

© 2006 Optical Society of America

Spatial decoherence of pulsed broad-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Michael Peeters, Guy Verschaffelt, Hugo Thienpont, Shyam K. Mandre, Ingo Fischer, and Martin Grabherr
Opt. Express 13(23) 9337-9345 (2005)

Bistable polarization switching in mutually coupled vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Raúl Vicente, Josep Mulet, Claudio R. Mirasso, and Marc Sciamanna
Opt. Lett. 31(7) 996-998 (2006)

Experimental study of polarization switching of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers as a dynamical bifurcation

Jon Paul, Cristina Masoller, Yanhua Hong, Paul S. Spencer, and K. Alan Shore
Opt. Lett. 31(6) 748-750 (2006)

Light flowers from coherent vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser arrays

Y. Yadin, J. Scheuer, Y. Gross, and M. Orenstein
Opt. Lett. 27(21) 1908-1910 (2002)

Correlated imaging with shaped spatially partially coherent light

Erwan Baleine, Aristide Dogariu, and Girish S. Agarwal
Opt. Lett. 31(14) 2124-2126 (2006)