Room-temperature lasing of strain-compensated CdSe/ZnSSe quantum island laser structures

Efficient resonant excitonic waveguiding is achieved in laser structures, grown by metallorganic chemical vapor deposition, with stacked CdSe quantum islands which were separated by ternary ZnSSe barriers. Plastic relaxation within the stack is shown to be suppressed by adjusting the sulfur content in the barriers to compensate the strain. Excitonic lasing with low threshold intensities is demonstrated well above room temperature with I-th(77 K)=0.8 kW/cm(2) and I-th(300 K)=55 kW/cm(2). (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(99)05522-X].