phys. stat. sol. (a) 200, No. 1, 122125 (2003) / DOI 10.1002/pssa.

200303325

Super high-power AlGaInN-based laser diodes

with a single broad-area stripe emitter fabricated
on a GaN substrate
Shu Goto*, 1, Makoto Ohta1, Yoshifumi Yabuki1, Yukio Hoshina1, Kaori Naganuma2,
Koshi Tamamura2, Toshihiro Hashizu1, and Masao Ikeda1
1

Development Center, Sony Shiroishi Semiconductor, Inc., 3-53-2 Shiratori, Shiroishi, Miyagi,
989-0734, Japan
Core Technology Development Group, Micro Systems Network Company, Sony Corporation,
4-14-1 Asahi-cho, Atsugi-shi Kanagawa, 243-0041, Japan

Received 28 April 2003, accepted 24 June 2003

Published online 12 November 2003
PACS 42.55.Px
AlGaInN-based blueviolet laser diodes with a single broad-area stripe emitter were successfully fabricated on GaN substrates. Three stripe widths were examined; 10, 50, and 100 m, and the maximum light
output power of 0.94 W under cw operation at 20 C was achieved for the sample with a stripe width of
10 m. A super high-power laser diode array was fabricated using 11 of these high-performance laser
chips, with a resultant output power of 6.1 W under cw operation at 20 C. This result represents the highest reported output power for blueviolet laser diodes.
2003 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

1 Introduction Super high-power (SHP) AlGaInN-based blueviolet laser diodes (LDs) are expected
to be adopted as laser systems for use in medical instruments and materials processing. SHP-LDs have
been developed according to two different approaches; using a single broad-area stripe emitter, or using
multiple narrow stripe emitters integrated monolithically into one laser chip. To date, the single broadarea stripe emitter approach has been limited by the fact that it is not possible to fabricate substrates with
sufficiently low dislocation density over a wide area. In 2001, the present authors monolithically integrated 4 high-performance narrow stripe emitters into one laser chip using epitaxial lateral overgrowth
(ELO) GaN substrates, and demonstrated a maximum light output power of 4.2 W under continuous
wave (cw) operation at 25 C by arraying 11 such laser chips [1]. However, the poor light condensing
characteristics of this type of SHP-LD system renders such arrays unsuitable for practical use.
In 2002, the authors reported the characteristics of LDs homoepitaxially grown on new GaN substrates
developed by Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. The area of low dislocation density (1.0 105 cm2) was
extended to an area over 150 m wide, and when combined with high-quality cleaved facets, gave laser
lifetimes far superior to ELO-GaN [2, 3].
This paper presents a new SHP blue-violet LD composed of a single broad-area stripe emitter on a
GaN substrate. A maximum light output power of 0.94 W under cw operation at 20 C was achieved for
the sample with the stripe width of 10 m. An array of 11 of these LDs was also successfully fabricated,
producing a combined light output power of over 6.0 W under cw operation at 20 C.

Corresponding author: e-mail: [email protected], Phone: +81 224 22 1137, Fax: +81 224 22 1125
2003 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

phys. stat. sol. (a) 200, No. 1 (2003) / www.physica-status-solidi.com

123

10 100 m

Fig. 1 (online colour at:

www.interscience.wiley.com) Laser
chip structure.

p-electrode

Active layer
Core region
Core region
400 m
(0001) n-GaN substrate
n-electrode

2 Fabrication A schematic of the laser chip structure is shown in Fig. 1. The layer structures were
grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition on a GaN substrate. The substrate used was a (0001)
n-type GaN substrate with 10 m core regions arranged in the [1100] direction with the periodicity of
400 m. The details of the laser structure have been reported elsewhere [4]. The stripe emitters were
formed on the low dislocation density region (<4.0 105 cm2) in widths of 10, 50, and 100 m. The
p-type (Pd/Pt/Au) and n-type electrodes (Ti/Pt/Au) were evaporated onto the p-GaN contact layer and
back surface of the n-GaN substrate, respectively. The cavity length was 600 m. The front and rear
facets were coated with 10% anti-reflective film and 95% high-reflectivity film, respectively. For adequate heat dispersion, the laser chips were mounted p-side down on an AlN sub-mount, which was in
turn mounted on a water-cooled Cu heatsink.
The fabricated LD array consisted of 11 of the above laser chips, with a total array width of about
10 mm. As a defect in one emitter could result in the failure of the entire LD array due to current or
thermal effects, the assembly process was carried out carefully.
3 Characteristics Typical light output power versus current (LI) and voltage versus current (VI)
characteristics under cw operation at 20 C are shown in Fig. 2, along with the LI characteristics under
pulsed operation. The emission wavelength was approximately 407 nm for all samples. The maximum
output power under cw operation for these devices decreases with increasing stripe width, to the point
where no stimulated emission was detected for the 100 m-stripe sample. All samples produced stimulated emission under pulsed operation. The threshold current increases with increasing stripe width, resulting in rapid deterioration of the electro-optic energy conversion efficiency because of the high operating voltage inherent in GaN-based material systems. Thus, the trend observed above is attributed to a
thermal effect.

0.6
0.4

4
Pulsed

(a)

0.2
0
0

0.5

1.0

Current (A)

1.5

2
0
2.0

0.8

8
6

0.6
0.4

4
Pulsed

(b)

0.2
0
0

0.5

1.0

Current (A)

1.5

20 C
CW

100 m

0.8
0.6

0.4

(c)

0.2
Pulsed

0
2.0

0
0

0.5

1.0

1.5

Voltage (V)

10

1.0

Voltage (V)

10 m

20 C
CW

50 m

Voltage (V)

Output power (W)

0.8

10

1.0

Output power (W)

20 C
CW

Stripe width

Output power (W)

10

1.0

2
0
2.0

Current (A)

Fig. 2 Typical LI and VI characteristics under cw operation at 20 C for samples with stripe width of a) 10,
b) 50, and c) 100 m.
2003 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

S. Goto et al.: Super high-power AlGaInN-based laser diodes

124

1.0
// = 2.3
= 20.2

30 m W
20C, C W

N=3, 0.2 W

20C,, C W

Iop (A)

Intensity (a. u.)

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

-45

-30

-15

15

30

45

200

400

600

800

1000

Time (h)

Angle (degrees)
Fig. 3 Far-field pattern for sample with a stripe
width of 10 m.

Fig. 4 Results of a lifetime test for LDs with a stripe

width of 10 m (0.2 W output power under cw operation at
20 C).

Voltage (V)

Output power (W)

As seen in Fig. 2, remarkably, an extremely high light output power of 0.94 W was achieved for the
10 m-stripe sample, at a threshold current of 0.14 A, operating current of 1.06 A, and operating voltage
of 5.79 V, and with a slope efficiency of 1.1 W/A.
A typical far-field pattern (FFP) for the 10 m-strip sample is shown in Fig. 3, taken at an operating
power of 30 mW and operating temperature of 20 C. Full width at half maximum angles parallel and
perpendicular to the junction plane was 2.3 and 20.2, respectively.
Figure 4 shows the results of a lifetime test for the fabricated 10 m-stripe LDs. The lifetime test was
performed under cw operation at an operating power of 0.2 W and operating temperature of 20 C. The
results indicate a lifetime of more than 700 h. The dislocation density in the region of the laser stripes for
these devices was 3.0 to 4.0 105 cm2, corresponding to approximately 18 to 24 dislocations in a laser
stripe with an area of 6.0 105 cm2. This number of dislocations is much lower than the best ELO-GaN
devices. With further reduction of the number of dislocations under the laser stripe, the lifetime of the
present devices can be expected to be improved further.
The LI and VI characteristics of the fabricated LD array are shown in Fig. 5. This LD array consists
of 11 laser chips, each with the 10 m-wide single-stripe emitter. Measurement was performed under cw
operation at 20 C. The emission wavelength
8
8
was approximately 407 nm. Remarkably, a
20C
LD array with 11 chips
maximum output power of 6.1 W was achieved,
CW
representing the highest reported output power
6
6
for a blueviolet LD. The threshold current,
operating current, and operating voltage at
6.1 W were 1.2 A, 6.5 A, and 5.4 V, respectively, and the slope efficiency was 1.3 W/A.
4
4

0
10

Current (A)
2003 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Fig. 5 Typical LI and VI characteristics of LD

array under cw operation at 20 C.

phys. stat. sol. (a) 200, No. 1 (2003) / www.physica-status-solidi.com

125

4 Conclusion AlGaInN-based blueviolet laser diodes with a single broad-area stripe emitter were
successfully fabricated on GaN substrates. A maximum light output power of 0.94 W under cw operation
at 20 C was achieved for the sample with a stripe width of 10 m. An SHP-LD array of 11 laser chips
was also successfully fabricated, producing a light output power of 6.1 W under cw operation at 20 C,
representing the highest reported output power for a blueviolet LD.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank S. Uchida, J. Ichijyo, S. Takano, Y. Ohfuji, M. Ohhara,
D. Imanishi and other researchers of Sony Shiroishi Semiconductor Inc. for their technical support and helpful discussions. The authors also thank S. Tanemo and Dr. O. Kumagai for their encouragement during this work.

References
[1] S. Goto, T. Tojyo, S. Ansai, Y. Yabuki, T. Hino, H. Yamanaka, Y. Morita, Y. Ito, S. Uchida, and M. Ikeda,
Proceeding of the Int. Symp. on Compound Semiconductors, Tokyo, 2001, pp. 177182.
[2] S. Goto, K. Tamamura, O. Matsumoto, T. Tojyo, T. Sasaki, Y. Yabuki, K. Naganuma, T. Asatsuma, S. Uchida,
and M. Ikeda, Electronic Materials Conference (44th 2002). Late News Paper, V9.
[3] O. Matsumoto, S. Goto, T. Sasaki, Y. Yabuki, T. Tojyo, S. Tomiya, K. Naganuma, T. Asatsuma, K. Tamamura,
S. Uchida, and M. Ikeda: Ext. Abst. of the 2002 Int. Conf. on Solid State Device and Materials, Nagoya, 2002,
pp. 832833.
[4] M. Takeya, T. Tojyo, T. Asano, S. Ikeda, T. Mizuno, O. Matsumoto, S. Goto, Y. Yabuki, S. Uchida, and
M. Ikeda, phys. stat. sol. (a) 192, No. 2, 269276 (2002).

2003 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim