We propose to develop a high power 1300 NM led for use in Navy fiber optic systems. The led structure will be grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxial (VPE) techniques which have been shown at epitaxx to produce high quality material and large numbers of wafers. The innovation consists of dry methane etching to "machine" the initial structure, together with novel VPE regrowth techniques to deposit semi-insulating inp current blocking layers. The device structure will be fabricated by dry etching and regrowth techniques. The active area of the device will be an interrupted stripe structure which will be defined by methane etching, a technique that has shown precise etch rates and excellent edge definition in the fabrication of avalanche photodiodes at epitaxx. Current confinement will be achieved by epitaxial regrowth of inp to yield semi-insulating current blocking layers. Various device geometries will be investigated to optimize the output power of the device and to prevent lasing over the entire range of operating temperatures. Phase I goals include construction of a device with a least 3 mw output at room temperature. Phase II goals include optimization of device structures to achieve narrow far field patterns, complete suppression of lasing and delivery of devices which launch more than -12dbm pf 1300 NM optical power into single mode fiber and -sdbm into 62 um core multi-mode optical fiber with less than a factor ten variation in coupled power from -28 to +85c.
