Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Takashi Sugino

Kunio Itoh

Hirokazu Shimizu

Masaru Wada

Akio Yoshikawa

Iwao Teramoto

Kazuo Fujimoto

Takako Okabe

Kunio Ito

Hiroyuki Mizuno

A semiconductor laser and a method of producing the same wherein the semiconductor laser is produced by forming a stripe-shaped projection on the surface of a semiconductor substrate, and forming multilayered thin films with a double heterostructure including an active layer on said semiconductor substrate by using the metal organic chemical vapor phase epitaxial growth method or the molecular beam epitaxial growth method. Thus, a buried stripe-structure semiconductor laser can be produced by a sequence of crystal growth processes.

Method of producing stripe-structure semiconductor laser

Buried stripe-structure semiconductor laser

In a laser of such type that the distribution of the effective refractive index varies in a direction which is along the face of its active layer and perpendicular to the direction of the laser light transmission, thereby defining the active region to be between a pair of refractive index changing zones, the refractive indexes of a pair of end surfaces of a laser resonator (i.e. the active region) is made smaller than the intrinsic refractive indexes of the cleavage face of the active layer.

Semiconductor laser

A mounting of semiconductor laser chip on a heat sink or metal mount is improved so as to enable high accuracy of position and direction. A heat sink or metal mount, on which a semiconductor laser chip is mounted, comprises two parts, namely a main mount or larger portion and a sub-mount or smaller portion. The semiconductor laser chip is soldered by a solder layer on the sub-mount utilizing a microscope so as to assure an accurate position and an accurate direction with respect to the sub-mount. Then, the sub-mount is soldered on the main mount by a solder layer with an accurate relation both in position and direction by engaging a linear ridge as a first engaging means provided on the upper face of the main mount with a straight groove and a rear end face as a second engaging means. As a result of the above-mentioned structure, accurate position and direction of the semiconductor laser chip with respect to the mount is easily obtainable with a high yield.

Semiconductor laser structure including dual mounts having ridge and

A mounting of semiconductor laser chip on a heat sink or metal mount is improved so as to enable high accuracy of position and direction. A heat sink or metal mount, on which a semiconductor laser chip is mounted, comprises two parts, namely a main mount or larger portion and a sub-mount or smaller portion. The semiconductor laser chip is soldered by a solder layer on the sub-mount utilizing a microscope so as to assure an accurate position and an accurate direction with respect to the sub-mount. Then, the sub-mount is soldered on the main mount by a solder layer with an accurate relation both in position and direction by engaging a linear ridge as a first engaging means provided on the upper face of the main mount with a straight groove and a rear end face as a second engaging means, or by engaging a square recess as a first engaging means and the square bottom of the sub-mount as a second engaging means with each other. As a result of the above-mentioned structure, accurate position and direction of the semiconductor laser chip with respect to the mount is easily obtainable with a high yield.

On a semiconductor laser substrate, a groove of tapered width is formed, and at least one crystal layer is formed on the substrate. The crystal layer is usable as a waveguide with two light input ends l.sub.1 and l.sub.2 and one light output end l.sub.3 as shown in FIG. 4(C).

Semiconductor device

A stem for a semiconductor laser device of a terraced substrate structure which has a tilted active layer against flat parts of the substrate, the stem comprises a base plate and a heat sink block, a flat face of the heat sink block for bonding the semiconductor laser device thereonto is tilted with respect to a base face of the base plate; this stem has features that the polarization direction of the lased light from the semiconductor laser device can be set to be parallel to (or perpendicular to) the base face of the base plate, and therefore it becomes much easier to make adjustments related with the polarization direction of the lased light.

Stem for semiconductor laser devices

In a semiconductor laser of terraced substrate type, comprising on a terraced substrate (11) of n-GaAs substrate, a first clad layer (12) of n-GaAlAs, an active layer (13) of non-doped GaAlAs, a second clad layer (14) of p-GaAlAs and a current limiting layer (15) of n-GaAs, and further thereon a thick overriding layer (19) of n-GaAlAs with strip shaped opening (191), are epitaxially formed, and a current injection layer (16) is formed by Zn diffusion through the opening (191) in a manner one corner (161) of the injection front penetrate the current limiting layer (15) and reaches the second clad layer (14). By means of thick overriding layer (19), shortcircuiting between the active layer (13) and a p-side electrode (7) is prevented.

Terraced substrate semiconductor laser

A terrace-substrate laser is improved by forming a stripe-shaped impurity diffused current-injection region (27) from the cap layer (25) at least so as to reach the oblique lasing region (231) of the active layer (23), so that the corner part of the current injection region (27) touches the lasing region (231); thereby current injection efficiency to the lasing region is highly improved and the injected current is effectively limited in the oblique lasing region even when a large current is injected, and furthermore, a threshold current can be greatly reduced. This laser can perform a stable fundamental transverse mode oscillation even at a large current operation.

Terrace-shaped substrate semiconductor laser

A very narrow current injection region (16') is made by means of terrace-shaping of the surface of the current limiting layer (13) forming a step thereon, the current limiting layer being on the epitaxially grown double hetero structure layers (10, 11 and 12) including the active layer (11). By so terrace-shaping, when Zn as a p-type impurity to form the current injection region (16) is diffused from the surface of the current limiting layer (13), the diffused region is formed to have a deeper part (16') and a shallower part (16'), and the deeper part (16') can be made very narrow by selecting the position of the stripe-shaped diffused region with respect to the step (14).

In a terraced substrate type semiconductor laser comprising a semiconductor substrate (11) having a step (T) on its principal face, an active layer (13) with an oblique central region (131), defined between two bendings, as stripe-shaped lasing region near the foot of the step part (T) of the substrate (11), and a clad layer (14) formed on the active layer (13), The device is characterized by comprising a current injection region (22) which is formed by diffusing an impurity, in a manner that a diffusion front corner (221) penetrate the clad layer (14) and contacts the oblique lasing region (131) thereby to form the current injection path (221) very narrow and closely to the central part of the stripe-shaped lasing region (13), thereby effectively confining the injected current to the lasing region (131) and hence attaining very low threshold current and very high external differential quantum efficiency.

A terraced semiconductor laser comprising semiconductor layers (10, 11, 12) including an active layer (11) formed on a terraced semiconductor substrate (9) in a manner to have an inclined part (111) ranging from the position above said step to the part shifted to the side of said thinner part, an overriding layer (13) having the opposite conductivity type to that of the uppermost layer (12) of said semiconductor layers (10, 11, 12) and formed on said uppermost layer (12), characterized by further comprising: a last layer (14) having the same conductivity type to that of the overriding layer (13) formed on the latter layer (13), said last layer (14) having a stripe-shaped through-opening (141) at the position which is a shifted position from the part immediately above said inclined part 111, thereby exposing a surface of said overriding layer (13) at the bottom of the through-opening (141), a conduction region (15) formed at least on the bottom and side faces of said stripe-shaped opening, in a manner to reach and contact said uppermost layer (12), a first electrode layer formed to contact to said conduction layer in said through-opening and a second electrode formed on the bottom face of said terraced semiconductor substrate. Short-circuiting of p-n junction is eliminated by the improved structure.

In a laser comprising a GaAs substrate, an active layer of GaAlAs put between a first and a second clad layers, a buffer layer is disposed between said first clad layer and said substrate, and thermal expansion coefficient of the buffer layer is selected smaller than that of said active layer; thereby an internal stress of the active layer is released and lifetime of the laser is very much prolonged.

In a semiconductor laser comprising an active layer epitaxially formed on a semiconductor substrate and at least a current limiting layer which defines a current injection region of a stripe shape,

Method of making a semiconductor laser by liquid phase epitaxial growths

On an n-type semiconductor substrate having a ridge part of stripe-shaped pattern, the following layers are formed by liquid phase sequential epitaxial growth: an undoped active layer; a p-type clad layer; and an n-type isolation layer. Thereafter, a Cd impurity is diffused in the isolation layer in a stripe-shaped pattern at the position above the ridge part, thereby forming a p+-type conduction region in the central part of the isolation layer. By forming the stripe-shaped ridge part on the substrate overriding the active layer, the injected current is effectively confined to the lasing region which is the thinner part of the active layer and is on the ridge part. Therefore the threshold current is decreased. Accordingly, the light lased in the active layer is effectively confined in a stripe-shaped lasing region thereof, and a stable transverse mode of lasing is obtainable.

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Takatsuki, Japan

Takashi Sugino