An edge-emitting laser diode is described in which the epitaxial upper cladding layer is replaced with a metal contact selected for its optical as well as electrical properties. The structure is demonstrated with an In0.1Ga0.9N multiple-quantum-well laser diode operating at 412 nm with silver rather than the typical p-type AlGaN for the upper cladding. Silver is effective as a cladding layer because of its very low index of refraction at the lasing wavelength, so that the guided optical mode exhibits minimal penetration into the silver. Eliminating the epitaxial upper cladding layer reduces thermal degradation of the InGaN multiple-quantum-well active layer.
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Bour et al. (2009) studied this question.
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