Buried-ridge striped planar GaAlAs/GaAs lasers with a wide range of effective index steps

A novel self-aligned buried-ridge striped planar (BRSP) GaAlAs/GaAs diode laser structure is presented. The structure was grown by two-step liquid phase epitaxy using preferential growth and melt etch. A Ga1−y Aly As layer with a wide range of Al concentration (y>0.05) is selectively grown outside the ridge and can be an effective melt-etching mask. As a result, the BRSP structure can incorporate virtually all effective index steps, i.e., the positive, negative, and complex index steps. The threshold current of the BRSP structure is between 70 and 100 mA. The BRSP structure may prove to be of importance in the realization of linear array lasers.