Monolithic AlGaAs-GaAs single quantum-well ridge lasers fabricated with dry-etched facets and ridges

A process has been developed to allow the fabrication of self-aligned etched-facet ridge lasers. The ridge lasers have both their facets and ridges formed through the use of the chemically assisted ion beam etching technique. The ridge and facet of these lasers are self-aligned so that any misalignment during the photolithography does not affect positioning of the laser ridge with respect to the facet. A cavity with a length as short as 3 μ has been fabricated. The longitudinal mode spacing has been experimentally measured as a function of inverse cavity length for both the n_QW=1 and 2 transitions, and the corresponding dispersion terms have been determined