Planar InP burying growth around a dry-etched mesa by addition of CH3Cl during MOVPE

Planar burying growth of InP around a dry-etched stripe mesa has been made with metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) by adding CH₃Cl to the process gases. The planarization effect of CH ₃Cl addition is striking especially in relatively low growth temperature conditions. From the growth behavior around mesas and a study of growth rate modifications, we consider that the migration enhancement of In atoms and the induced dependence of growth rate on the crystallographic orientation produces the planar burying growth. Using reactive ion etching (RIE) for mesa fabrication and adding CH₃Cl in MOVPE growth, we demonstrated 1.5 μm InGaAsP/InP buried-heterostructure (BH) laser diodes with Fe doped semi-insulating InP layers. We obtained comparable laser characteristics with those of conventional wet-etched mesa laser diodes