It was recalled that the first blue-green laser diodes that were based upon ZnSe exhibited room-temperature continuous-wave lifetimes of the order of 60s. It was noted that the source of the diode degradation was the presence of extended defects. The predominant extended defects in these lasers originated as stacking faults which were generated at ZnSe/GaAs heterovalent nucleation events. They exhibited densities which were of the order of 106/cm2. It was shown here that it was possible to reduce the density of such extended defects to the order of 1000/cm2 over a 75mm wafer.

C.C.Chu, T.B.Ng, J.Han, G.C.Hua, R.L.Gunshor, E.Ho, E.L.Warlick, L.A.Kolodziejski, A.V.Nurmikko: Applied Physics Letters, 1996, 69[5], 602-4