High-speed distributed feedback lasers grown by hydride epitaxy

We have used hydride vapor phase epitaxy to prepare re-entrant mesa buried-heterostructure distributed feedback lasers. The grating is overgrown uniformly with minimal amplitude reduction. A semi-insulating Fe-InP blocking layer around the etched mesas is grown very reproducibly with little dependence upon the details of mesa etching. Laser diodes show cw thresholds of ∼25 mA. Single-mode operation has been shown at power levels as high as 18 mW and temperatures up to 100 °C. Modulation bandwidth in excess of ∼8 GHz has been demonstrated with simple and reliable full surface Ohmic contacts.