Silver-clad nitride semiconductor laser diode
An edge-emitting laser diode structure is described in which the conventional upper cladding layer is replaced with a metal contact selected for its optical as well as electrical properties. The structure is illustrated with an In0.1Ga0.9N multiple-quantum-well nitride laser diode operating at 412 nm in which the upper cladding layer is silver metal rather then the typical p-type AlGaN. Silver is effective as a cladding layer because of its very low index of refraction at the lasing wavelength, so that the guided optical mode exhibits minimal penetration into the silver; and simultaneously its high work function makes it a good electrode for contact to p-type GaN. With these properties of silver the mode loss is acceptably low, and pulsed, room-temperature lasing is demonstrated.
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Bour, D. P. ; Chua, C. L. ; Yang, Z. H. ; Teepe, M. R. ; Johnson, N. M. Silver-clad nitride semiconductor laser diode. Applied Physics Letters. 2009 January 26; 94 (4): 041124.
Copyright © American Institute of Physics, 2009. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Applied Physics Letters and may be found at http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/94/041124/1.