Polarized Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser Arrays With Asymmetrical Structures for Three-Dimensional Sensing With Polarization Imaging

Three-dimensional (3D) sensing with polarization imaging has a high signal to noise ratio and detection accuracy. In this paper, the polarization characteristics and far field patterns (FFPs) of the vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and their arrays with rhomboidal, circular, elliptical, and rectangular mesas are fabricated and measured, targeting the application in the 3D sensing with polarization imaging. The single VCSEL with a rhomboidal mesa realizes an orthogonal polarization suppression ratio (OPSR) of 15.4 dB under continuous-wave operation at 25°C, and has a Gaussian-like FFP. The VCSEL array with rhomboidal mesas realizes an OPSR of 11.5 dB. The experiment results indicate that the VCSEL and its array with asymmetrical structures by simple fabrication are expected to simultaneously achieve high OPSRs and high-quality beam, very promising for the 3D sensing with polarization imaging.