Facet-coating effects on the 1.3-μm strained multiple-quantum-well AlGaInAs/InP laser diodes

In this paper, we report the fabrication and characteristics of 1.3-mu m strained multiple-quantum-well ridge-waveguide Al-GaInAs/InP laser diodes and the influence of reflective films on threshold current, slope efficiency, characteristic temperature and lone-term reliability. A higher characteristic temperature and improved linearity of CW light-current characteristics can be obtained by increasing the facet reflectivity. With a high reflectivity coating of 70% on the front facet and 90% on the rear facet, the laser diodes exhibit a high characteristic temperature of 92 K, an output power of 15 mW at 120 degrees C, and only 0.7 dB slope efficiency drop at the output power of 30 mW and 20 degrees C. Long-term aging was applied to test the facet-coating reliability using the constant power mode of 10 mW at 85 degrees C. The laser diodes have exhibited stable operation up to 6000 h and no significant degradation has been observed.