Abstract
The use of lateral oxidation for electrical and optical confinement on GaSb based mid-infrared vertical light emitting diode is demonstrated in this paper. The metamorphic growth of (Al)GaAs above a tunnel junction grown on GaSb-based resonant cavity light emitting diode, enables good structural quality of the As-based layers and the oxidation of AlAs embedded film. Oxide-confined devices with emission wavelength around 2.6 µm are demonstrated, with no noticeable degradation from the oxidation thermal treatment. Such efficient oxide confinement scheme can be applied for the realization of high performance mid-infrared vertical cavity lasers. Vertical cavity light emitting devices, epitaxially grown on GaSb, stand as a very attractive solution for a number of optical sensor applications in the mid-infrared range. The achievable emission band, with the lattice-matched alloys on this substrate, is extremely wide from the telecom wavelengths to atmosphere transparent windows relevant for gas spectroscopy. The 2-3 µm range coverage enables the detection of a large variety of gases, relevant for the environmental pollution reduction and the control of industrial technological processes. Very recently, the GaSb-based vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL) have been successfully fabricated above 2.3 µm, with very promising electrical and optical properties [ 1, 2 ]. GaSb based material system shows numerous advantages specifically in the design of vertical cavity lasers, since it affords to realize within a minimum lattice mismatch, high