(Al)GaInP laser with lateral confinement by epitaxial growth on nonplanar substrates

The authors present an AlGaInP/GaInP strained QW laser with AlGaAs cladding layers grown over nonplanar substrates. Excellent device quality and performance is obtained on substrates patterned with ridges prior to epitaxial growth. The lateral current and carrier confinement achieved by exploiting the disordering of the neutral superlattice at ridge sidewalls with shallow angles results in a threshold current density for 5- mu m-wide stripes that is one-half that of conventional devices. The potential of this device for high electrical-to-optical conversion makes it well suited for applications to dense addressable laser arrays.<
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