Short-cavity Fabry-Perot lasers using crystal facets

GaAs/AlGaAs short-cavity Fabry-Perot (F-P) lasers using vertical crystal facets as reflectors are fabricated by using selective area metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE). The laser structures consist of a (111)B growth plane and (110) sidewall facets vertical to the substrate surface. The sidewall facets are also crystallographically parallel to each other. These features are suitable for mu m-size short-cavity F-P lasers. In addition, by using the lateral growth on the (110) facets in the selective area epitaxy, the edge of a GaAs active layer is covered with an AlGaAs layer to reduce the carrier loss caused by surface recombination. As a result, we successfully obtained a room-temperature lasing with a cavity length as short as 5 mu m. This is the shortest cavity length in lateral F-P lasers that has so far been reported.