56 fJ dissipated energy per bit of oxide-confined 850 nm VCSELs operating at 25 Gbit/s

A new record for energy-efficient oxide-confined 850 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers is presented. Such VCSELs are particularly suited for optical interconnects. Error-free performance at 25 Gbit/s is achieved with 56 fJ/bit of dissipated energy per quantum of information. The influence of variations of the oxide-aperture diameter on the energy-efficiency is determined. The presented singlemode devices are more energy-efficient than similar multimode ones.