Patent ID: 7218660

Claim:
A vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) operable to generate single-mode laser light at an operative wavelength, comprising: a light-emitting surface; and a monolithic longitudinal stack structure including a first mirror having an optical reflectivity R 1 for light at the operative wavelength, a second mirror having an optical reflectivity R 2 for light at the operative wavelength, wherein R 1 and R 2 have different respective values one of which is greater than 99.9% and another of which is less than 99.7%, a cavity region extending from the first mirror to the second mirror and including an active light generation region and a cavity extension region; wherein the longitudinal stack structure further includes an ion-implanted current confinement region characterized by a peak longitudinal implant concentration separated from the cavity region by a longitudinal distance greater than 0.5 μm.