VI Systems has released its first circular multi-mode 850nm VCSEL (vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser) chip array, featuring six emitters that are evenly positioned within a 78µm diameter ring circle, each providing 3.5mW continuous-wave optical output power per channel (totalling 21mW). Each VCSEL channel is individually addressable from top contacts. The chip footprint is 750µm x 500µm.
The semiconductor device targets sensor applications that include multicore fibre sensors. For fibre sensor applications the VCSEL emitters can be coupled into a multicore fibre specially developed by Polish firm InPhoTech and tailored for the VCSEL array.