A vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) may include a top contact, wherein the top contact is associated with a particular shape, and wherein the particular shape is a toothed shape with a particular quantity of teeth. The VCSEL may include at least one implanted region. The VCSEL may include at least one top contact segment.

A semiconductor laser diode is specified, the semiconductor laser diode includes a semiconductor layer sequence having an active layer having a main extension plane and which, in operation, is configured to generate light in an active region and emit light via a light-outcoupling surface, the active region extending from a back surface opposite the light-outcoupling surface to the light-outcoupling surface along a longitudinal direction in the main extension plane, the semiconductor layer sequence having a surface region on which a first cladding layer is applied in direct contact, the first cladding layer having a transparent material from a material system different from the semiconductor layer sequence, and the first cladding layer being structured and having a first structure.

A light-emitting device includes a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser, the resonant cavity of which is transverse multimode supporting transverse modes having rotational symmetry of order two about a main optical axis, and an index-contrast grating including a plurality of pads. The pads include: a central pad, a plurality of peripheral pads, which are periodically arranged along one or more lines that are concentric with respect to the central pad, and which are arranged so that the grating has, with respect to the main optical axis, a rotational symmetry of uneven order higher than or equal to three.

Systems and methods according to present principles provide, at room temperature, a bound state in the continuum laser that harnesses optical modes residing in the radiation continuum but nonetheless may possess arbitrarily high quality factors. These counterintuitive cavities are based on resonantly trapped symmetry-compatible modes that destructively interfere. Such systems and methods may be applied towards coherent sources with intriguing topological properties for optical trapping, biological imaging, and quantum communication.

In some implementations, a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) includes a substrate layer and epitaxial layers on the substrate layer. The epitaxial layers may include an active layer, a first mirror, a second mirror, and one or more oxidation layers. The active layer may be between the first mirror and the second mirror, and the one or more oxidation layers may be proximate to the active layer. The one or more oxidation layers may be configured to control beam divergence of a laser beam emitted by the VCSEL based on at least one of: a quantity of the one or more oxidation layers, a shape of the one or more oxidation layers, a thickness of the one or more oxidation layers, or a proximity of the one or more oxidation layers to the active layer.

Methods for designing a mode-selective optical device including one or more optical interfaces defining an optical cavity include: defining a loss function within a simulation space encompassing the optical device, the loss function corresponding to an electromagnetic field having an operative wavelength within the optical device resulting from an interaction between an input electromagnetic field at the operative wavelength and the one or more optical interfaces of the optical device; defining an initial structure for each of the one or more optical interfaces, each initial structure being defined using a plurality of voxels; determining values for at least one structural parameter and/or at least one functional parameter of the one or more optical interfaces by solving Maxwell's equations; and defining a final structure of the one or more optical interfaces based on the values for the one or more structural and/or functional parameters.

A semiconductor light emitting element includes an optical waveguide having a first and second waveguide provided with a width that allows propagation of light in a second-order mode or higher and a multimode optical interference waveguide provided with a wider width than the first and second waveguide and arranged at a position therebetween. The semiconductor light emitting element further includes a first optical loss layer facing the first waveguide in an active-layer crossing direction for causing a loss of light that is propagating in the first waveguide in the second-order mode or higher and a second optical loss layer facing the second waveguide in an active-layer crossing direction for causing a loss of light that is propagating in the second waveguide in the second-order mode or higher, the active-layer crossing direction being orthogonal to a surface of an active layer.

Methods for designing a mode-selective optical device including one or more optical interfaces defining an optical cavity include: defining a loss function within a simulation space encompassing the optical device, the loss function corresponding to an electromagnetic field having an operative wavelength within the optical device resulting from an interaction between an input electromagnetic field at the operative wavelength and the one or more optical interfaces of the optical device; defining an initial structure for each of the one or more optical interfaces, each initial structure being defined using a plurality of voxels; determining values for at least one structural parameter and/or at least one functional parameter of the one or more optical interfaces by solving Maxwell's equations; and defining a final structure of the one or more optical interfaces based on the values for the one or more structural and/or functional parameters.

A semiconductor optical integrated device is a semiconductor optical integrated device in which a first optical element, a monitoring light waveguide and a second optical element, through which light propagates, are formed on a common semiconductor substrate; wherein the monitoring light waveguide is joined to the first optical element, and the second optical element is joined to the monitoring light waveguide. The monitoring light waveguide includes a light scattering portion for scattering a part of the light, which is composed of a combination of light waveguides having different mode field diameters or having different centers of mode field diameters; and a light detector for receiving scattered light scattered by the light scattering portion, is placed on an outer periphery of the monitoring light waveguide, or on a back surface of the semiconductor substrate on its side opposite to that facing the light scattering portion.

A vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) device includes a substrate, first and second-type doped distributed Bragg reflectors, first and second electrodes, an active layer, a surface relief layer having a surface relief indentation of a diameter (d4) ranging from 1.0-6.0 um, and a confinement member defining an aperture with a diameter (d2) ranging from 3.0-15 m. The second electrode is a ring-shaped p-contact metal having an inner diameter (d3) ranging from 8-17 m. The VCSEL device has a mesa structure that has a bottom mesa diameter (d1) ranging from 16-28 m. The diameters satisfy the relation of d1>d2>d3>d4. The surface relief layer has a thickness equaling to n/4 times a wavelength of a laser beam generated by the active layer with n being positive even numbers.