Abstract

The dry-etched corner reflector may be a suitable candidate for a high reflectivity integration laser cavity structure.¹ We describe here the optical properties of a strained layer InGaAs-GaAs-AlGaAs quantum well lasers with a single cleaved facet at one end and an etched corner reflector at the other. For comparison, we contrast these data with Fabry- Perot lasers made from the same material having either two cleaved facets or one cleaved and one straight-etched facet. The etched corner reflector exhibits higher overall reflectivity than both the straight-etched and cleaved facet structures, resulting in lower threshold current density and higher efficiency. However, near-field measurements indicate that the improvement in reflectivity from the etched comer reflectors is offset by their tendency to favor odd order transverse modes.

© 1993 Optical Society of America