Focus of this work is the optimization of growth to achieve high quality la
ser material for emission at 1.3 mum and beyond. GaAs/CaAsN/InCaAsN heteros
tructures were grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy. To achieve opt
imum crystal quality of InGaAsN heterostructures, growth was followed by a
high temperature treatment at about 700 degreesC, The high optical quality
of our annealed material is attested by large exciton recombination lifetim
es (more than 2 ns). Consequently, a decrease of single quantum well transp
arency current density down to 100 A/cm(2) is found and SWQ lasers with thr
eshold current densities as low as 350A/cm(2) have been made. This represen
ts clearly the lowest laser thresholds reported so far for emission around
1.3 mum from the InGaAsN material system. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Sc
ience B.V.