Integrated semiconductor ring lasers

Ring-waveguide and pill-box structures down to 12 ¿¿m in diameter, made in GaAs/GaAlAs heterostructure material, have been designed with output stripe waveguides coupled to the rings via Y-junctions. The waveguides were defined by reactive ion etching, although the inner boundaries of some of the ring waveguides relied on stress and carrier confinement. Lasing has been observed with pulsed drive current, and has been shown to correspond to resonances in the rings, although other resonances have been observed in some of the structures. This type of structure is suitable for use as a light source in monolithic integrated optics.