Integrated laser/waveguide by shadow-masked selective area epitaxy using chemical beam epitaxy (CBE)

An integration concept which involves the selective deposition of quantum w ells in spatially selected areas of a wafer and in the middle of a waveguid e structure is presented for the first time. The selective deposition is ac hieved by the in situ insertion and removal of a shadow mask during the gro wth process. The shadow-mask concept, and data on alignment and edge defini tion are presented. Experimental results on selectively grown quantum wells show that the shadow mask has no effect on the non-radiative carrier lifet ime even when only a single quantum well is selectively deposited. The perf ormance of laser diodes fabricated using this novel integration technique i s compared with broad area devices grown without a shadow mask. Crown Copyr ight (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.