IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 9, NO.

4, APRIL 1997

431

2.0- m Single-Mode Operation of

InGaAsInGaAsP Distributed-Feedback
Buried-Heterostructure Quantum-Well Lasers
Mamoru Oishi, Mitsuo Yamamoto, and Kazuo Kasaya

Abstract Distributed-feedback (DFB) buried-heterostructure

(BH) lasers with quantum-well active region emitting at 2.0 m
have been fabricated and characterized. The lasers with four
wells showed the performance of practical use: the threshold
current as low as 15 mA for 600-m-long devices and CW singlemode output up to 5 mW at 2.03 m under operation current
of 100 mA were observed. The current- and temperature-tuning
rates of DFB mode wavelength are 0.004 nm/mA and 0.125 nm/K,
respectively.
Index TermsDistributed feedback lasers, quantum well.

I. INTRODUCTION

PECTROSCOPIC and medical applications in trace-gas

sensing require those lasers that emit light with wavelengths longer than conventional fiber optic communication
range of 1.31.55 m. Traditionally such lasers have been developed in the GaInAsSb system [1][2]. It has been reported
that high quality lasers operating at around 2.0 m can be
prepared with the technologically-matured InGaAs(P) system
by using highly strained quantum wells in the active region [3].
Broad-area and ridge waveguide lasers with threshold current
densities comparable to those obtained in a more conventional
wavelength range of 1.31.55
have been prepared [4],
[5]. Single-mode distributed-feedback (DFB) ridge waveguide
lasers operating at 1.95 m [6] have been reported, though
their outputs were at most 0.1 mW. Buried heterostructure
(BH) lasers operating at a wavelength as long as 2.0 m [7]
were also reported. We have fabricated DFB BH lasers of
practical performance operating at a wavelength as long as
2.03 m.

(a)

(b)
Fig. 1. Dependence of threshold current density on reciprocal cavity length
for wide-ridge waveguide lasers with (a) two-well and (b) four-well active
region.

II. DEVICE STRUCTURE

The epitaxial wafers used in this work were grown by
metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) [8]. Separateconfinement heterostructure (SCH) scheme was used. Four
9.3-nm-thick compressively strained In Ga As wells
were separated by a slightly tensile strained (0.2%), 20-nmthick InGaAsP (
1.5 m) barrier layer. These quantum
wells were sandwiched between a 50-nm-thick lower and a
1.15 m) SCH layers.
70-nm-thick upper InGaAsP (
After the growth of the upper SCH layer, a p-InP cover
Manuscript received October 22, 1996; revised December 13, 1996.
The authors are with the NTT Opto-electronics Laboratories, Atsugi-shi,
Kanagawa 243-01, Japan.
Publisher Item Identifier S 1041-1135(97)02428-2.

layer was grown. This structure leads to a room-temperature

photoluminescence (PL) peak at 1.995 m. For evaluation
on wafer quality, a wafer with two wells is also grown to
produce FabryPerot devices.
To fabricate a DFB structure, the p-InP cover layer was
etched away and first-order grating corrugations were etched
into the top of the InGaAsP SCH layer using E-beam lithography and wet etching. Then, pn-blocking layers were grown
around the 1.5- m-wide active region. The mesa-defining
SiO layer was then removed and the second regrowth, consisting of a p-InP cladding and p -InGaAs contact layers,
was carried out. To test as FabryPerot (FP) devices, a pInP cladding and a p -InGaAs contact layers were regrown

10411135/97$10.00 1997 IEEE

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IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 9, NO. 4, APRIL 1997

Fig. 2. Single-mode spectrum of 2.0-m DFB laser at room temperature.

Fig. 3. Light-current characteristics of a DFB laser for temperature from

15  C to 45  C.

directly on a portion of the wafers without corrugation fabrication. The growth temperature was 600 C both for the base
wafer growth and for the regrowth. No significant degradation
during the regrowth nor PL gain change in both intensity
and wavelength was observed. After metal evaporation for
electrodes on both surface of the wafer, laser bars were
cleaved. The both facets of the DFB laser bars were AR coated
(
10%) and separated into individual devices.
III. DEVICE CHARACTERISTICS
The wafers were first characterized under pulsed operation
at room temperature in the form of wide ridge waveguide
lasers. The plots of
as a function of reciprocal cavity
length measured for lasers with two and four quantum wells
are shown in Fig. 1(a) and (b), respectively. These data are
well fitted by a simple logarithmic gain approximation. The
lines are a linear fit to the data. The weaker dependence on
length for the lasers with four wells reflects the higher optical
confinement of these devices. In lasers with a larger number
of wells, the modal gain saturates at relatively higher carrier
injection levels. Therefore, a lower optimum cavity length and
minimum threshold currents are expected. The lower minimum
threshold current is observed for the lasers with four wells as
expected, to the contrary of the previous work [6]. Hence,
for the characterization described below, DFB BH lasers were
fabricated only from the wafer with four wells hereafter.

Fig. 4. Wavelength of a DFB mode as a function of injection current. The

current-tuning rate of a DFB mode is almost linear at 0.004 nm/mA.

Fig. 5. Temperature dependence of a DFB-mode wavelength for injection

currents from 40 to 160 mA. The tuning rate is 0.125 nm/K.

A typical spectrum of a DFB laser at room temperature

is shown in Fig. 2. The wavelength of the DFB mode for
this device is 2.027 m. The side-mode suppression ration is
about 30 dB. The CW light-current characteristics are shown
in Fig. 3. Typical threshold currents were between 1535 mA.
The variation in threshold currents is mainly resulted from
the distribution of the difference between the gain wavelength
and the DFB wavelength. The output power is 5 mW per
facet at room temperature under the operation current of 100
mA. These values are at the same range as those of the FP
devices fabricated from the same wafer. It shows no significant
degradation was occurred during the additional processing
specific to DFB laser fabrication reported previously [6].
The characteristic temperature of a threshold current in the
range of 15 C45 C was described by
45 K. It
shows that these lasers operate essentially under the same
mechanism as of conventional InP-based lasers and indicates
that the abrupt decreases in characteristic temperature
reported before [9] was not inherent phenomenon encountered
in 2- m lasers. Fig. 4 shows the changes in wavelength with
injection current at 15 C55 C. The current-tuning rate of a
DFB mode is almost linear at 0.004 nm/mA, although, due to
the discrepancy between optical gain and modal wavelength,
continuously-varied DFB modes were not observed in the
range of the lower ( 20 C) temperature and the lower (
100 mA) injection current. In that range, FP modes were
dominant. The wavelengths of a DFB laser as a function of

OISHI et al.: 2.0- m SINGLE-MODE OPERATION OF QUANTUM-WELL LASERS

433

was 0.004 nm/mA. The DFB lasers reported here match well
with requirement for light source in trace-gas sensing systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Y. Hirano, J. Satoi, J.
Asaoka, and K. Yamaguchi for the assistance in the fabrication
of these devices.
REFERENCES

Fig. 6. Far-field pattern of a DFB laser. Horizontal and vertical FWHMs

are 32 and 37 , respectively.

temperature are shown in Fig. 5 for constant currents of 40

160 mA. The tuning rate is 0.125 nm/K which agrees with the
DFB tuning rate for other InGaAs DFBs [6].
A far-field pattern of a DFB laser is shown in Fig. 6. The
values of horizontal and vertical FWHMs are 32 and 37 ,
respectively. These values are almost the same as those of
1.55- m lasers with same dimensions of active region and
matches well with calculated results.
IV. CONCLUSION
We have fabricated and tested distributed-feedback buried
heterostructure multiple-quantum-well lasers. The lasing
wavelength was as long as 2.03 m with a side-mode
suppression ration of 30 dB. The temperature coefficient of
lasing wavelength was 0.125 nm/K and the current tuning rate

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