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Opto-electronics will have to play a crucial role in future development
of communications and information processing and, as a consequence,
will influence very much our society in the next years. The Vertical
Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSEL) are likely to become much more
important than standard semiconductor lasers in the near future in
opto-electronic devices. In order to reach this major breakthrough, an effort must be faced for solving some problems related to the VCSEL behaviour, in particular for polarisation instabilities pattern complexity, modulation patterning effects, low power, thermal lensing and feedback effects. Even more important, VCSEL special characteristics can be fruitfully used for improving systems performance, for instance with polarisation control, by employing spatial structures for information processing, by achieving quantum-limited performance. The main objectives of the Project are the understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms relevant to VCSEL operation, the subsequent improvement of their efficiency and the transfer of this knowledge to VCSEL based systems. These objectives are achieved by exploiting new possibilities associated with VCSEL features and by novel kind of lasers and device concepts. A tight collaboration is necessary among laboratories with device construction facilities, laboratories with nonlinear and quantum optics and electronics expertise and theoretical groups. Indeed, the samples production requires a large research infrastructure and few European groups (and in few European countries) have this possibility. Besides, a complete characterisation and understanding of the laser behaviour implies specialised competencies and must be performed by groups with the necessary experience. This network will provide the link between the most important European groups in the involved research fields, connecting device production, characterisation and implementation in communication systems. |
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