Patent ID: 8451706

Claim:
A vertical cavity surface emitting laser comprising: a semiconductor substrate; a first semiconductor multilayer film reflector which is laminated on the semiconductor substrate, in which a pair of a high-refractive-index layer having a comparatively high refractive index and a low-refractive-index layer having a low refractive index is stacked, and which is of a first conductivity type; a resonator that includes an active layer laminated on the first semiconductor multilayer film reflector; and a second semiconductor multilayer film reflector which is laminated on the resonator, in which a pair of a high-refractive-index layer having a comparatively high refractive index and a low-refractive-index layer having a low refractive index is stacked, and which is of a second conductivity type that is different from the first conductivity type, wherein an optical thickness of the resonator is larger than an emission wavelength of the vertical cavity surface emitting laser, and at least two resonant wavelengths are within a reflection wavelength band of at least one of the first and second semiconductor multilayer film reflectors, and wherein the resonator includes a pair of spacer layers that are laminated on the top and bottom of the active layer and a resonator extending region that is formed so as to be adjacent to one of the pair of spacer layers, a composition of at least a layer included in the resonator extending region is different from any of compositions of the semiconductor substrate, the first semiconductor multilayer film reflector, and the second semiconductor multilayer film reflector, and a lattice constant of a crystal forming the resonator extending region is smaller than a lattice constant of a crystal forming the first or second semiconductor multilayer film reflector.