Atsushi TODA, Toshimasa KOBAYASHI and Masashi DOHSEN

Sony Corporation Research Center, Fujitsuka-cho 174, Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama, 240 Japan

(Received March 22, 1995; Accepted September 2, 1995)

We have developed highly reliable etched-mirror laser diodes using a dry etching method. The lasers without facet-coating have been operating stably over 2500 h under automatic-power control (APC) at a power of 3 mW/facet at 50°C. The gain-guided laser diodes with a cylindrical-mirror cavity (CMC) have coaxial mirrors and a fan-shaped stripe structure. By decreasing the curvature radius of the inner facet or increasing the stripe width of the inner facet, the beam waist parallel to the junction plane can be moved outside of the laser diode, while the beam waist perpendicular to the junction plane stops at the mirror facet. A particular CMC laser has a low astigmatism of 4.1 μm and a low relative intensity of noise (RIN) less than -134 dB/Hz at 4 mW under 0-1% optical feedback without high frequency current superposition.

Key words : etched-mirror laser, LD, curved mirror, CMC, astigmatism