Room-temperature CW operation of lateral current injection lasers with thin film lateral cladding layers

Semiconductor membrane laser with high index-contrast waveguide is promising for achieving low power consumption operation. As a step to realize a current injection (LCI) type membrane laser, GaInAsP/InP lateral current injection type Fabry-Perot lasers with 400 nm thin core layer, including compressively-strained 5 quantum-wells were realized by 2-step OMVPE regrowth on a semi-insulating InP substrate. A RT-CW operation with a threshold current of 12 mA, which corresponds to a threshold current density of 1.7 kA/cm², was obtained for a sample with a stripe width of 1.4 mum and a cavity length of 490 mum. This LCI structure can be attractive for membrane photonic devices for optical interconnections and on-chip optical wiring.