Directly modulated azimuthally polarized vector beam laser design.

ABSTRACT

Directly modulated vector beam lasers are increasingly desirable for wide applications ranging from optical manipulation to optical communications. We report the first, to our knowledge, high-speed directly modulated vector beam laser with azimuthally polarized emission. It is a microcylinder cavity interacted with a proper second-order grating on top, which enables single mode lasing and efficient surface emission. Through theoretical and numerical analysis, the laser is designed in detail. With an optimized top grating, the emission of the laser is an azimuthally polarized vector beam. With high-differential-gain material and a small active region, the laser can be directly modulated with a high 3 dB bandwidth reach of 40 GHz in simulation. The proposed high-speed directly modulated semiconductor laser with an azimuthally polarized vector beam is promising for applications in fiber space communications or quantum information.