GaAs GaAlAs double-heterostructure injection lasers with distributed feedback

Abstract

GaAs-GaAlAs double-heterostructure distributed-feedback injection lasers are investigated at temperatures between 80 and 150 K under pulsed operation. The optical feedback for laser oscillation is provided by a corrugated interface between the p-GaAs active layer and the p-GaAlAs layer. The corrugation is made by two methods, ion milling and chemical etching, and the latter method is found to give the lower threshold. The laser oscillation occurs in a single longitudinal mode, whose wavelength is stable against the change of the excitation level. The temperature dependence of the wavelength of the distributed-feedback laser is shown to be 0.5 Å/°, which is about <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">\frac{1}{3}</tex> to <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">\frac{1}{4}</tex> that of the conventional Fabry-Perot (FP) laser.