International Business Machines Corporation

Theodor Forster

Christoph S Harder

Gary W Rubloff

Albertus Oosenbrug

A method for full-wafer processing of laser diodes with cleaved facets combining the advantages of full-wafer processing, to date known from processing lasers with etched facets, with the advantages of cleaved facets. The steps being: defining the position of the facets to be cleaved by scribing marks into the top surface of a laser structure comprising epitaxially grown layers, these scribed marks being perpendicular to the optical axis of the lasers to be made, the scribed marks being parallel, their distance (l.sub.c) defining the length of the laser cavities and the distance (l.sub.b) between the facets of neighboring laser diodes; and covering the uppermost portion with an etch mask pattern which provides for etch windows between the scribed marks defining the position of facets of neighboring lasers; and etching trenches into an upper portion of the structure defined by the etch windows; and partly underetching the upper portion during a second etch step such that the laser facets can be defined by cleaving the upper portion along the scribed marks without cleaving the whole laser structure; and ultrasonically or mechanically cleaving the upper portions being underetched along the scribed marks; and separating the laser diodes by cleaving them between neighboring lasers.

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Thalwil, Switzerland

Theodor Forster