Buried heterostructure surface emitting laser diodes fabricated using integrated vacuum processing

In this paper, we describe an in-situ process in which etching and regrowth are performed in controlled vacuum environments without exposing samples to air. The etching includes electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma H₂ to remove the native oxides, ECR SiCl₄ to etch anisotropically, and/or a brief Cl₂ chemical etch to remove any near surface damage. Solid-source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is used for regrowth. We have applied this in-situ all vacuum processing to the fabrication of buried heterostructure vertical cavity surface emitting laser diodes