Abstract

Up to now, for the telecom applications, the optoelectronic components are mainly used in the transmission systems. Due to the higher properties of the optical fiber at 1,3 and 1,55µm wavelengths, InP based adapted components were studied replacing first 0,85µm GaAs based laser diodes. Nevertheless for the short distance transmission links and due to the lower cost, GaAs based laser diodes are always industrially used. Among the different research activities devoted to the telecommunication aspect, two of them are of strong interest for optical amplification and optical interconnection. The recent boom on optical doped fiber amplification and the need of adapted pump laser has recently strongly improved research activities on 0,98µm laser diode. These GaAs based lasers are using "a strained quantum well vertical structure". The laser structure is shortly described. High performances are obtained with a CW optical power = 150mW for only = 200mA. Commercial products are already available but important research activity is still in progress. Finally due to the higher and higher bit rates needed in the telecommunication industry, optical interconnection is becoming an important technology. It allows to simplify the development of the sophisticated equipments. Several channels (> 4), with high bit rates (622 Mb/s ; 2,5 Gb/s) are used in parallel which need the development of adapted laser arrays. GaAs based lasers are studied in several companies and the paper focuses on the new vertical cavity surface emitting laser.