Use of AlOx in cladding layers of an antimonide laser structure emitting at 2.3 µm

Low-threshold laser emission at room temperature of a GaSb-based quantum well structure is reported in this paper. The optical and electrical confinement of the structure have been improved by inserting an aluminium oxide layer obtained by wet oxidation of AlAs in the upper confinement layer. The strains between the oxide layer and the contiguous layers (GaAs and GaSb) are compensated by an AlAs/GaAs superlattice. The resulting morphology of the oxidized AlAs layers is presented.