Multimode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers under spin injection

<jats:p>Recent research revealed that single-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers under spin injection (spin-VCSELs) have the potential to revolutionize laser technology for short-haul optical communications. While previous studies have focused solely on single-mode operation, this study introduces multimode spin-VCSELs. We experimentally demonstrate the existence of multi-resonant polarization dynamics when spin is injected, a phenomenon previously unobserved. The development opens the door to significantly faster and more efficient optical communication systems by harnessing the collective behavior of multiple laser modes. Furthermore, we lay the groundwork for understanding multimode operation through the extension of the single-mode spin–flip model, which forms the basis for present and future analyses of multimode spin-laser operation. This work is an important step toward realizing the full potential of spin-VCSELs and, thus, enables significantly improved performance of spin-VCSEL-based optical networks in the future.</jats:p>