(Al, Ga)As, GaAs double heterostructure lasers prepared by new liquid phase epitaxial growth technique

(Al,Ga)As, GaAs double heterostructure (DH) lasers have received much attention as light sources for optical fiber transmission lines. However, the yield of long life lasers still remain at a quite low level. In order to solve this problem, the author developed a new liquid phase epitaxial growth(LPE) technique characterized by (1) adding GaCl vapor to the growth atmosphere, and (2) using a new boat structure by which multilayer LPE can be carried out without mechanical wipe off of the growth melt. The DH wafer grown by the new LPE technique was quite uniform over whole area (10 × 12 mm2) in the sense that every part of it was suitable for fabrication of long-life lasers. the yield of the lasers which survived through one thousand-hour cw test exceeded fifty percent for specific wafers.