Novel semiconductor laser structures fabricated with chemically assisted ion beam etching

The work presented in this thesis is a step towards the realization of a miniature optical table on a semiconductor surface. The main goal of this work has been to develop the necessary processes to enable fabrication of a monolithic ring laser on a semiconductor surface.;Various etching technologies were considered for the AlGaAs/GaAs semiconductor system and it was concluded that chemically assisted ion beam etching (CAIBE) was the best available technique for monolithic laser fabrication.;A variety of etch-masks were considered for use in CAIBE. A SiO;Broad-area semiconductor lasers were fabricated using a simple process based on the SiO;A more detailed process allowed the fabrication of ridge lasers. A variety of characterizations were performed on rectangular, V-shaped, and ring ridge lasers. The semiconductor ring ridge lasers show some characteristics which are similar to the much larger optical table based ring lasers, but also have some unique properties of their own which has allowed them to achieve unidirectional operation.