We report the study of lasing modes in broad-area, equilateral-triangular laser cavities. An alternative approach is proposed to study optical modes in equilateral triangular cavities in an analytical form. The modes were obtained by examining the simplest optical paths inside the cavity, which yields the final solution with the boundary conditions. The cavities can be fabricated from semiconductor heterostructures grown on ͑111͒oriented substrates, which can be easily cleaved into equilateral triangular shapes. Such a design takes advantage of total internal reflection at the cleaved facets of the cavity for circulating modes. Experimental results are obtained from cavities fabricated from a superlattice structure of In 0.13 Ga 0.87 As/GaAs grown on a ͑111͒ GaAs substrate.

p-i-n photodiodes were fabricated on nitrogen ion implanted undoped ZnSe/n-type ZnSe epilayers grown on n+GaAs (100) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. To obtain a quasi-uniform p layer doping profile, nitrogen ions at multiple energies and ion doses were implanted at room temperature. The activation of implanted species was carried out by an optimized post-annealing in a nitrogen ambient. Optical studies were performed on the implanted/annealed devices by photoluminescence spectroscopy at 10 K, which indicated donor–acceptor pairs at an energy of 2.7 eV and its phonon replicas with 30 meV intervals. The circular p-i-n diodes with a 1 mm diam contact area showed a device breakdown voltage to be linearly dependent on the thickness of the undoped ZnSe epilayer. For p-i-n diodes fabricated on an initial 0.5 μm thick undoped ZnSe layer, an ideality factor of 1.19 and a reverse bias breakdown voltage of 12 V was observed. A large photocurrent, good linearity with light intensity, and low dark current were observed. A photocurrent/dark current ratio >105 was obtained at an illumination intensity of 100 mW/cm2. These devices exhibited a responsivity of 0.025 A/W at a wavelength of 460 nm through the top 200 Å thick metal contacts.

The effect of spacers in modulation-doped Zn1−xCdxSe/ZnSe:Cl multiple quantum wells (MD-MQWs) was investigated by photoluminescence (PL) and time-of-flight secondary-ion-mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). A comparison was made between structures with and without spacers as a function of annealing temperature. The diffusion of Cl and Cd was monitored by TOF-SIMS depth profiling and photoluminescence. Although TOF-SIMS does not show any significant diffusion of Cl and Cd in both structures at temperatures up to 385 °C, the PL results indicate the modification of optical properties in the Zn1−xCdxSe/ZnSe:Cl MD-MQWs due to annealing. Up to an annealing temperature of 385 °C, the MD-MQWs with spacers show superior optical quality in the quantum well regions, while quenching of the quantum well band-edge PL and strong enhancement of deep-level emission were observed from the MD-MQWs without spacers. This phenomenon suggests that the radiative deep-level emission may provide more efficient channel for electron–hole recombination with increasing annealing temperature.

Grazing incidence x-ray scattering and x-ray diffraction techniques have been employed to investigate the microstructures in various ZnSe-based semiconductor thin films grown on GaAs substrates by molecular beam epitaxy and metalorganic chemical vapor deposition methods. The results are also used for a comparison of the interfacial roughness and overall quality of the II-VI thin films prepared by these two different growth methods. Structural parameters such as the interfacial roughness and layer thickness obtained from the scattering measurements and lattice constants obtained from the x-ray diffraction pattern around the GaAs͑004͒ peak can be correlated with the film deposition rate, compound composition, and lattice strain in the epilayers. We thus demonstrate that x-ray scattering techniques in conjunction with diffraction measurements are useful tools for nondestructive characterization of buried interfaces in semiconductor layer materials.