High-performance strain-compensated multiple quantum well planar buried heterostructure laser diodes with low leakage current

The dependence of leakage current in a planar buried heterostructure laser diode (PBH-LD) on the operating temperature was analyzed by taking the effects of the connection width between a p-InP clad layer and a p-InP blocking layer into account. A two-step etching process comprising nonselective mesa etching followed by InP selective etching is proposed for obtaining a narrow connection width and high controllability of an active layer width. The performance was compared for LDs fabricated using the two-step etching process and those fabricated using conventional nonselective etching process. The average threshold current and the slope efficiency of the 1.3 mu m strain-compensated multiple quantum well (MQW) PBH-LD fabricated using the two-step etching process were 5.6 mA and 0.27 mW/mA, respectively, for a cavity length of 400 mu m. However, using the nonselective etching process, the average threshold current was 14.5 mA and the slope efficiency was 0.22 mW/mA, given the same cavity length. A higher differential gain and characteristic temperature were also obtained due to the lower leakage currents and strain-compensated multiple quantum well active layers.