Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

Gerhard Baumann

Markus-Christian Amann

Wolfgang Thulke

Jochen Heinen

A tunable semiconductor laser which is formed on a substrate 2 which has a first contact 14 on one surface and a third contact 16 on the opposite surface so as to supply the operating current which is laterally limited to a laser-active stripe through a barrier layer 4 l and including a second contact 15 on a ridge waveguide 11, 12, 13 so as to inject charge carriers into a tuning layer 9 mounted adjacent an active layer 6 and which is separated from the active layer by highly doped central layer 10 so as to allow tuning of the laser.

Tunable semiconductor laser

In the manufacture of laser diodes having a stripe-shaped, active layer, a problem arises upon application of lateral layers, particularly of blocking pn-junctions for lateral current conduction, in that these layers are undesired above the active layer. By applying a protective cover layer that will dissolve in super-cooled melts of the material of the lateral layers, before the growth of the lateral layers, the growth of the lateral layers, particularly blocking pn-junctions, above the active stripe is avoided since the cover layer dissolves in the melt given epitaxial application of the lateral layers.

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Ottobrunn, Germany

Gerhard Baumann