NEW STRUCTURES BOOST SEMICONDUCTOR LASER PERFORMANCE - AT LAST A PRACTICAL ROOM-TEMP VISIBLE LASER.

New semiconductor laser materials and structures being developed at the laboratories of manufacturers, universities, and research institutes are giving a great boost to optoelectronics. In the materials area; GaAs lasers - upon which most of the research efforts have been concentrated - are being challenged by indium-antimony devices whose wavelength can be controlled by application of a magnetic field to the indium-antimony laser. At the same time, better device structures are increasing the capabilities of lasers made with GaAs. This article reports on advances made in device structures made at Matsushita Electronics, which has succeeded in fabricating GaAs lasers capable of room-temperature operation at 7. 610 A in a continuous-wave mode, and at 6,680 A in pulsed operation. It also discusses the possibility of achieving even shorter wavelengths with GaAs.