True-blue nitride laser diodes grown by plasma assisted MBE on low dislocation density GaN substrates

Abstract

We present recent progress in the growth of nitride based laser diodes (LDs) made by Plasma Assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy (PAMBE). In this work we demonstrate LDs grown by PAMBE operating in the range 450 – 460 nm. The LDs were grown on c-plane bulk GaN substrates with threading dislocation density (TDD) ranging from 10 3 cm -2 to 10 4 cm -2 . The low TDD allowed us to fabricate cw LDs with the lifetime exceeding 2000 h at 10 mW of optical output power. The maximum output power for 3 LDs array in cw mode was 280 mW and 1W in pulse mode. The low temperature growth mode in PAMBE allow for growth of AlGaN-free LDs with high In content InGaN waveguides. The key element to achieve lasing wavelengths above 450 nm was the substantial increase of the nitrogen flux available during the growth by PAMBE.