Fabrication and Characterization of Narrow-Stripe Quantum Well Laser Diodes

More efficient semiconductor lasers will be needed in tomorrow's applications. These lasers can only be realized through the application of new device processing techniques, designed to restrict current, carrier, and/or photon flow through the lasing cavity. This work aims to evaluate a non-conventional stripe laser processing technique which has the potential for effective current and possibly carrier confinement at low cost. This technique, referred to as hydrogen passivation, involves exposing laser material to a low energy hydrogen plasma, causing hydrogen ions to bind to charged acceptor and donor atoms. Such binding compensates the electrical activity of these dopant atoms and thereby increases the resistance of the exposed material. Optical confinement can also be achieved (subsequent to hydrogenation) by using a simple wet-etching process to form a lateral waveguide. Stripe lasers fabricated via hydrogen passivation have been demonstrated previously; however, the benefits of this method have not been fully explored or characterized. Our work aims to quantify the degree of current and carrier confinement provided by this technique. The cleaved cavity method of analysis is used to extract laser parameters via direct measurement. These parameters are then compared against those obtained from more conventional stripe lasers to identify improvements that have accrued from using hydrogen passivation.