Temperature influences several properties of Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs). Self heating restrains gain, raises threshold current and restricts output power. In this paper, thermal behavior of VCSELs is evaluated with a procedure that includes multilayer aspects of heat flux propagation. The method takes into account the order between quarter-wave layers and can predict temperature profile inside the laser. Thermal resistance of typical devices calculated by using this approach are in good agreement with experimental values.1 247252