Polarization Modulation in Quantum-Dot Spin-VCSELs for Ultrafast Data Transmission

Spin-Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (spin-VCSELs) are undergoing increasing research effort for new paradigms in high-speed optical communications and photon-enabled computing. To date research in spin-VCSELs has mostly focused on Quantum-Well (QW) devices. However, novel Quantum-Dot (QD) spin-VCSELs, offer enhanced parameter controls permitting the effective, dynamical and ultrafast manip-ulation of their light emission's polarization. In the present contribution we investigate theoretically in detail the operation of QD spin-VCSELs subject to polarization modulation for their use as ultrafast light sources in optical communication systems. We reveal that QD spin-VCSELs outperform their QW counterparts in terms of modulation efficiency, yielding a nearly two-fold improvement. We also analyse the impact of key device parameters in QD spin-VCSELs (e.g. photon decay rate and intra-dot relaxation rate) on the large signal modulation perfor-mance with regard to simulated optical modulation amplitude and eye-diagram opening penalty. We show that in addition to exhibiting enhanced polarization modulation performance for data rates up to 250Gb/s, QD spin-VCSELs enable operation in dual (ground and excited state) emission thus allowing future exciting routes for multiplexing of information in computing and processing applications.

Automated summary

This study theoretically investigates the operation of Quantum-Dot (QD) spin-VCSELs with polarization modulation for their use as ultrafast light sources in optical communication systems. It is found that QD spin-VCSELs outperform their Quantum-Well (QW) counterparts in terms of modulation efficiency, yielding a nearly two-fold improvement. In addition, QD spin-VCSELs enable operation in dual emission, offering exciting routes for multiplexing of information in computing and processing applications.