Control of lateral and longitudinal modes of the GaAs/(GaAl)As semiconductor laser

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1980

OSTI ID:5408464

Chen, C Y

Control of lateral and longitudinal modes of the double heterostructure GaAs/(GaAl)As semiconductor laser is studied experimentally and analyzed theoretically. A mode-stabilized double-current-confinement channeled-substrate-planar (DCC-CSP) laser has been developed in this study. With a narrow channel, double-current confinement, and uniform excitation, the lateral- and longitudinal-mode behaviors of the DCC-CSP laser are shown to be of superior quality. We have developed a double-etching technique (DET) which can be applied to fabricate submicron channels on the GaAs wafer. This technique pushes the linewidth beyond the resolution limit set by diffraction in photolithography. Channels as narrow as 0.8 ..mu..m have been made on the GaAs wafer using DET. This technique together with liquid phase epitaxy is applied to the fabrication of the narrow channel DCC-CSP laser. This laser not only further improves the lasing characteristics but also relaxes the stringent design tolerance of the simple CSP laser. An iterative effective refractive index approximation for improving solutions of waveguiding problems in a general three-dimensional dielectric waveguide is also presented. Measurement of the beam-waist position provides information concerning the guiding mechanism of the semiconductor laser. Measurement on the DCC-CSP laser reveals that gain/loss mechanism is responsible for the waveguiding in the lateral direction. Meanwhile, detailed study shows that an asymmetric current profile can degrade the fundamental lateral-mode operation and nonuniform excitation can lead to multi-longitudinal mode operation.

• OSTI ID: 5408464
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
420300* -- Engineering-- Lasers-- (-1989)
ALUMINIUM ARSENIDES
ALUMINIUM COMPOUNDS
AMPLIFICATION
ARSENIC COMPOUNDS
ARSENIDES
CONTROL
FABRICATION
GAIN
GALLIUM ARSENIDES
GALLIUM COMPOUNDS
LASER MATERIALS
LASERS
MATERIALS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MODE CONTROL
PNICTIDES
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
SEMICONDUCTOR LASERS