High transmission through ridge nano-apertures on Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers

We report high-intensity nano-aperture Vertical-Cavity Surface- Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) with sub-100nm near-field spots using ridge apertures. Power transmission efficiency through different ridge apertures, including bowtie, C, H and I-shaped apertures on VCSELs were studied. Significantly higher transmission efficiencies were obtained from the ridge apertures than those from conventional square apertures. Mechanisms for high transmission through the ridge apertures are explained through simulation and waveguide theory. A new quadruple-ridge aperture is proposed and designed via simulation. With the high-intensity and small spot size, VCSELs using these ridge nano-apertures are very promising means to realize applications such as ultrahigh-density near-field optical data storage and ultrahigh-resolution near-field imaging etc.