Method of fabricating a high power semiconductor laser with self-aligned

Abstract

A method of fabricating a semiconductor laser comprises the steps of sequentially depositing a lower cladding layer, an active layer, a first upper cladding layer, an etching stop layer, a second upper cladding layer and an ohmic contact layer over a compound semiconductor substrate, forming an etching mask over the ohmic contact layer so as to expose channel regions and to shield the ridge regions between the channel regions, performing wet etching to etch the ohmic contact layer and the second upper cladding layer so as to expose the etching stop layer so as to form the channels and the ridges having narrower widths than the parts of the etching mask shielding the ridge regions, and implanting dopant ions into the parts of the first upper cladding layer and the active layer below the channels to form ion-implanted regions by using the etching mask as the ion implantation mask.