First demonstration of a 980nm oxide confined laser with integrated spot size converter

A new technique for the monolithic integration of a laser with a spot size converter is presented. The introduction of the wet thermal selective oxidation of an AlxGai1−xAs layer with a high Al-composition simplifies the fabrication to one planar epitaxial growth step and one noncritical conventional etch. We report on the design, fabrication and performance of a 980nm InGaAs/GaAs strained quantum well tapered oxide confined laser with CW threshold currents of 25mA and differential quantum efficiencies of 21%/facet. The integrated spot size converter effectively reduced the horizontal and vertical FWHM to 7.5° and 13.5°, respectively.