Design and fabrication of high power single mode double-trench ridge waveguide laser

A high power single-lateral-mode double-trench ridge waveguide semiconductor laser is reported. The laser has a compressively strained double quantum-well (DQW) and an GaAs/AlGaAs separate confinement structure. The ridge waveguide is defined by two trenches of finite width on either side of the ridge, which will result mode radiation towards outside of the trenches. The relationship between the leakage loss and the waveguide geometry of the each lateral mode is studied with effective index method. The relationship under different bias condition is evaluated. Based on the simulation, lasers with various trench width, trench depth and ridge width are fabricated and tested. With optimized geometry parameters, a laser of 1.5-mm cavity length with a maximum single-lateral-mode operation current of 550 mA is obtained. The threshold current and the slope efficiency of the laser is 30 mA and 0.72 W/A, respectively. The maximum single-lateral-mode power is up to 340 mW.