Blue-green light generation by frequency doubling in (112)-oriented III-V heterostructures

Blue-green light-emitting semiconductor lasers are currently of great practical interest because of their potential use in many scientific and technological applications. In particular, these devices would be useful in high-density optical data storage, full-color displays, and in certain metrology and medical diagnostics applications. The goal of this thesis is to develop a second-harmonic blue-green light-emitter. Such a device would make use of the second-order nonlinear interaction of the fundamental fields generated in a conventional III-V semiconductor laser.; An analysis of the dependence of the second-order nonlinear polarization on crystal orientation is conducted. Crystal symmetry effects are found to play an important role in determining whether a second-order nonlinear polarization can be generated in the material. Specifically, it is determined that (001) -oriented devices cannot produce the desired second-harmonic fields unless both TE- and TM-polarized fields are used in the doubling process. It is shown, however, that off-oriented devices can generate second-harmonic fields with only TE-polarized fundamental fields. This is of critical importance since semiconductor laser diodes emit light that is predominantly TE-polarized. Of all the (11{dollar}ell{dollar}) orientations studied, it was determined that a (112) -oriented device will exhibit the highest conversion efficiency.; Several studies involving the passive generation of visible light by frequency doubling of an externally generated laser beam in an (Al,Ga)As/(Al,Ga)As multilayer waveguide structure are conducted. Both (001) - and (112) -oriented devices are analyzed and the theoretically predicted relationship between crystal symmetry and field polarization for the two orientations is verified.; Quasi-phase-matching techniques used to eliminate the destructive interference effects suffered by the harmonic fields are discussed. In addition, analytical expressions for the second-harmonic power in quasi-phase-matched multilayer waveguides are also developed. These models can be a powerful tool in the design of more efficient device structures.; The surface-emission of coherent blue-green light at {dollar}lambda{dollar} = 487 nm generated in an In{dollar}sb{lcub}0.2{rcub}{dollar}Ga{dollar}sb{lcub}0.8{rcub}{dollar}As/GaAs double quantum well edge-emitting laser is demonstrated for the first time. For a continuous wave fundamental power of about 10 mW, a second-harmonic power of about 2.6 nW is generated.