Short-cavity, edge-emitting lasers with high-reflectance, dielectric mirrors

The fabrication and characterization of short-cavity, edge-emitting lasers operating at 861 nm is reported. These lasers were fabricated with high-reflectance, dielectric mirrors formed by plasma-enhanced, chemical-vapor deposition. Lasers with cavity lengths of 64 and 32 μm had continuous-wave, room-temperature threshold currents of 4.0 and 2.9 mA, respectively. To determine the reflectance of the deposited dielectric mirrors, a simple relationship was derived that used the change in the laser threshold current density resulting from mirror deposition.