Provided is a semiconductor light device comprising a semiconductor substrate having a first conduction type; a first cladding layer having the first conduction type deposited above the semiconductor substrate; an active layer; a second cladding layer having a second conduction type; and a contact layer. The active layer includes a window portion that is disordered via diffusion of vacancies and a non-window portion having less disordering than the window portion, and the contact layer includes a first region and a second region that is below the first region and has greater affinity for hydrogen than the first region.

A miniature structured light illuminator is provided. The miniature structured light illuminator uses a semiconductor surface emitting array including VCSEL or RC-LED array and an array of microlens elements to generate a wide range of structured light illumination patterns. The emission beam from a surface emitter array may be selectively directed, steered, focused or expanded, by applying a lateral displacement of the microlens array, such that centers of the emission beam and microlens array are misaligned. Emitted beams may be directed through small optical components to project the structured light pattern to a distant plane. The surface emitting arrays may be configured in addressable form to be activated separately for continuous or pulsed operation with very fast pulses having <100 ps risetime. A compact structured light illuminator module with projection optics is provided in very small physical size (663 mm.sup.3) suitable to configure in a handheld device.