Single heterostructure tunable diode lasers formed by compositional interdiffusion

A new annealing technique, compositional interdiffusion (CID), has been used to fabricate high performance, single heterostructure diode lasers of Pb1-xSnxSe and PbS1-xSex. These alloy semiconductors cover the infrared region from 3 to 30 µm The improved tunable diode lasers exhibit CW operating temperatures as high as 130K with bias currents limited to 2 Amps. Using temperature variation single lasers have been tuned as much as 400 cm^-1, with some lasers having been tuned over the entire 9-12 µm atmospheric window region. Single-ended, CW power outputs as high as 38 mW at a bias current of 2 Amps have been observed from PbS1-xSexlasers fabricated by the new technique. It is shown that the CID effect should occur in other Pb-salt type alloy semiconductors as well.