Are blue and ultraviolet VCSELs a reality or just a dream?

Other conference contribution, 2020

Blue-emitting vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with high optical output powers and decent threshold current densities have recently been demonstrated, but the power efficiency is still below 10%. We will give an overview of the challenges to realize high-performing devices and summarize state-of-the-art results, including our schemes for optically guided devices that are used in the best blue VCSELs today. In addition, we will present our method to simultaneously achieve high-reflectivity mirrors and good control over the cavity length for ultraviolet VCSELs. This has resulted in, to the best of our knowledge, the shortest VCSEL emission wavelength around 310 nm.