A portable lighting apparatus is provided with a gallium-and-nitrogen containing laser diode based white light source combined with an infrared illumination source which are driven by drivers disposed in a printed circuit board assembly enclosed in a compact housing and powered by a portable power supply therein. The portable lighting apparatus includes a first wavelength converter configured to output a white-color emission and an infrared emission. A beam shaper may be configured to direct the white-color emission and the infrared emission to a front aperture of a compact housing of the portable lighting apparatus. An optical transmitting unit is configured to project or transmit a directional light beam of the white light emission and/or the infrared emission for illuminating a target of interest, transmitting a pulsed sensing signal or modulated data signal generated by the drivers therein. In some configurations, detectors are included for depth sensing and visible/infrared light communications.

A semiconductor device fabrication method in which a growing process is followed by a capping process in which a phosphor containing material cap layer is deposited over a final GaAs based layer. The wafer, containing many such substrates, can be removed from the reaction chamber to continue processing at a later time without creating an oxide layer on the final GaAs based layer. In continuing processing, a decomposition process selectively decomposes the phosphor containing material cap layer, after which a regrowing process is performed to grow additional layers of the device structure. The capping, decomposition and regrowth processes can be repeated multiple times on the semiconductor devices on the wafer during device fabrication.

A light-emitting element includes: a laminated structure body 20 which is formed from a GaN-based compound semiconductor and in which a first compound semiconductor layer 21 including a first surface 21a and a second surface 21b that is opposed to the first surface 21a, an active layer 23 that faces the second surface 21b of the first compound semiconductor layer 21, and a second compound semiconductor layer 22 including a first surface 22a that faces the active layer 23 and a second surface 22b that is opposed to the first surface 22a are laminated; a first light reflection layer 41 that is provided on the first surface 21a side of the first compound semiconductor layer 21; and a second light reflection layer 42 that is provided on the second surface 22b side of the second compound semiconductor layer 22. The first light reflection layer 41 includes a concave mirror portion 43, and the second light reflection layer 42 has a flat shape.

In example implementations of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL), the VCSEL includes a p-type distributed Bragg reflector (p-DBR) layer and a p-type ohmic (p-ohmic) contact layer adjacent to the p-DBR layer. The p-DBR layer may include an oxide aperture and the p-ohmic contact layer may have an opening that is aligned with the oxide aperture. The opening may be filled with a dielectric material. A metal layer may be coupled to the p-ohmic contact layer and encapsulate the dielectric material.

A VCSEL can include: an active region configured to emit light; a blocking region over or under the active region, the blocking region defining a plurality of channels therein; a plurality of conductive channel cores in the plurality of channels of the blocking region, wherein the plurality of conductive channel cores and blocking region form an isolation region; a top electrical contact; and a bottom electrical contact electrically coupled with the top electrical contact through the active region and plurality of conductive channel cores. At least one conductive channel core is a light emitter, and others can be spare light emitters, photodiodes, modulators, and combinations thereof. A waveguide can optically couple two or more of the conductive channel cores. In some aspects, the plurality of conductive channel cores are optically coupled to form a common light emitter that emits light (e.g., single mode) from the plurality of conductive channel cores.

Systems and methods are described herein to grow a layered structure. The layered structure comprises a first germanium substrate layer having a first lattice constant, a second layer that has a second lattice constant and is epitaxially grown over the first germanium substrate layer, wherein the second layer has a composite of a first constituent and a second constituent, and has a first ratio between the first constituent and the second constituent, and a third layer that has a third lattice constant and is epitaxially grown over the second layer, wherein the third layer has a composite of a third constituent and a fourth constituent, and has a second ratio between the third constituent and the fourth constituent, wherein the first ratio and the second ratio are selected such that the first lattice constant is between the second lattice constant and the third lattice constant.

An optical device may include an array of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) having a design wavelength, each VCSEL having an emission area. The optical device may include a first metal layer, substantially covering the array, a second metal layer substantially covering the first metal layer, and an electrical isolation layer, between the first metal layer and the second metal layer, that includes vias for electrically connecting portions of the first metal layer and portions of the second metal layer. The optical device may include a dielectric disposed over the emission area of each VCSEL. A variation in a thickness of the dielectric across at least approximately 90% of an area of the dielectric may be less than approximately 2% of the design wavelength. A depth of a well around the emission area may be equal to at least approximately 10% of a width of the emission area.

A quantum cascade laser includes light-emitting quantum well layers configured to emit infrared laser light by an intersubband transition; and injection quantum well layers configured to relax carrier energy. The light-emitting quantum well layers and the injection quantum well layers are stacked alternately. The injection quantum well layers relax the energy of carriers injected from the light-emitting quantum well layers, respectively. The light-emitting quantum well layers and the injection quantum well layers including barrier layers. At least one barrier layer includes first and second regions of a first ternary compound semiconductor, and a binary compound semiconductor thin film. The binary compound semiconductor thin film is provided between the first and second regions. The first ternary compound semiconductor includes Group III atoms and a Group V atom. The binary compound semiconductor thin film includes one Group III atom of the first ternary compound semiconductor and the Group V atom.

The present disclosure provides a method and structure for producing large area gallium and nitrogen engineered substrate members configured for the epitaxial growth of layer structures suitable for the fabrication of high performance semiconductor devices. In a specific embodiment the engineered substrates are used to manufacture gallium and nitrogen containing devices based on an epitaxial transfer process wherein as-grown epitaxial layers are transferred from the engineered substrate to a carrier wafer for processing. In a preferred embodiment, the gallium and nitrogen containing devices are laser diode devices operating in the 390 nm to 425 nm range, the 425 nm to 485 nm range, the 485 nm to 550 nm range, or greater than 550 nm.

A vertical cavity surface-emitting laser includes a first insulating film provided on a semiconductor layer, the first insulating film having a recess, an identification mark provided in the recess of the first insulating film, the identification mark being formed of a metal layer, and a second insulating film provided over the semiconductor layer and covering the first insulating film and the metal layer. The metal layer has an upper surface located at a height equal to or lower than an upper surface of the first insulating film.