The technique of pulsed anodic oxidation is adopted in the fabrication of 980-nm bottom-emitting vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. A high-quality native oxide current blocking layer is formed with this method. A significant reduction of threshold current and a distinguished device performance are achieved. The threshold current of large aperture devices with active diameter up to 400 microns is as low as 0.45 A at room temperature, which is substantially lower than the lasers fabricated by SiO2 sputtering. The maximum continuous-wave output power is 0.83 W. The lasing peak wavelength is 990.2 nm, and the full width at half-maximum is 0.9 nm. Low lateral divergence angle of 15.3 deg. and vertical divergence angle of 13.8 deg. are obtained.