Two-color surface-emitting lasers were fabricated using a GaAs-based coupled multilayer cavity structure grown by molecular beam epitaxy. InGaAs/GaAs multiple quantum wells were introduced only in the upper cavity for two-mode emission in the near-infrared region. Two-color lasing of the device was successfully demonstrated under pulsed current operations at room temperature. We also observed good temporal coherence of the two-color laser light using a Michelson interferometer. A coherent terahertz source is expected when a wafer-bonded coupled cavity consisting of (001) and non-(001) epitaxial films is used for the two-color laser device, in which the difference-frequency generation can be enabled by the second-order nonlinear response in the lower cavity. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.