VCSEL with finite-size high-contrast metastructure

High-contrast metastructures like one-dimensional high-contrast gratings (HCGs) are promising to improve the performance of conventional VCSELs, also presenting a basis for new applications. Different from the previous studies where HCGs are always modelled being of infinite size, we studied here the finite-size HCGs, which match the real situation. We observe finite-size HCGs behaving very differently from infinite-size HCGs. The reflectivity of a finitesize HCG strongly depends on the HCG size and the source size. At the same time, the simulation results show, that finite-size HCGs can shape the output beam, and a Gaussian-like reflected wave is typically achieved. Most important the normally incident light is partly redirected to the in-plane direction, showing unidirectional transmission. Monolithically integrated HCG-based optical sensors can be based on this novel effect. An integrable HCG reflector was fabricated with GaInP as the sacrificial layer targeting the application of HCG-VCSEL at 980 nm range. The measured reflectivity agrees well with the calculated reflectivity.