High brightness single-mode ridge laser utilizing buried heterostructure defined by quantum-well intermixing

The authors demonstrate a novel high brightness single-lateral mode ridge laser using quantum well intermixing to form a buried heterostructure. Increased discrimination between the fundamental and higher order modes can be achieved using the buried heterostructure to reduce the width of the gain section, enhancing fundamental mode operation. This allows the ridge width to be increased while maintaining fundamental mode operation, hence reducing the optical intensity at the facet and increasing the optical power before mirror degradation. Standard and novel buried heterostructure ridge lasers of 5-μm width are compared; far-field beam profiles clearly show improved modal stability for the novel structure.