Optically Pumped Thin-Platelet Semiconductor Lasers

Abstract

Thin vapor‐grown platelets of Cd(SeS) and thin platelets of GaAs and Ga(AsP) prepared from bulk wafers have been pumped as lasers with Ga(AsP) diode lasers used as the optical excitation sources. Continuous laser emission at 77°K in the visible spectrum has been obtained from thin Cd(SeS) platelets pumped with a cw He–Ne laser. Thin platelets of Cd(SeS) have been found to be essentially transparent to their own laser emission, and a mechanism responsible for laser action is discussed to account for this behavior. The mode and oscillator behavior of thin platelet II‐VI and III‐V lasers is discussed. Experimental effects due to many‐body interactions of charge carriers in a III‐V semiconductor platelet laser have been obtained; these are manifest in the shift of laser emission to longer wavelengths with increasing excitation under conditions of negligible crystal heating