VERTICAL CAVITY SURFACE EMITTING LASER DEVICE WITH INTEGRATED TUNNEL JUNCTION

The invention describes a Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) device (100). The VCSEL device (100) comprises a first electrical contact (105), a second electrical contact (150) and an optical resonator. The optical resonator comprises a first distributed Bragg reflector (115), a second distributed Bragg reflector (125) and an active layer (120) for light emission. The active layer (120) is arranged between the first distributed Bragg reflector (115) and the second distributed Bragg reflector (125). Either the first distributed Bragg reflector (115) or the second distributed Bragg reflector (125) comprises a first part (115-1, 125-1) with at least one pair of layers with different refractive indices and a second part (115-2, 125-2) with at least one pair of layers with different refractive indices. The first part (115-1, 125-1) and the second part (115-2, 125-2) are characterized by different conductivity types. A tunnel junction (130) is arranged between the first part (115-1, 125-1) and the second part (115-2, 125-2). The first electrical contact (105) and the second electrical contact (150) are arranged to electrically pump the optical resonator such that the tunnel junction (130) is reversely biased during operation of the VCSEL device (100).The invention further relates an optical sensor and a time-of-flight sensor module (200) comprising such a VCSEL device (100). The invention finally relates to a corresponding method of fabricating such a VCSEL device.