Harmonic and intermodulation distortion in oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

The nonlinear distortion in single and multimode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) under analog modulation was studied both numerically and experimentally. A quasi-three-dimensional time domain model was used to simulate the second-order harmonic and third-order intermodulation distortion in typical GaAs-based oxide-confined VCSELs emitting at 850 nm. The model is based on fundamental interrelated physical processes involving the optical fields and carrier and temperature distributions with no parameter fitting to experimental results. The simulations show that for low modulation frequencies (