Correlation between the reliability of laser diodes and the crystal perfection of epitaxial layers estimated by high-resolution x-ray diffractometry

The dependence of the degradation of high-power quantum-well GaAs/AlGaAs laser diodes, grown by molecular-beam epitaxy, on the crystal perfection of the individual layers of the heterostructure is investigated. The crystal perfection of the layers is estimated by highresolution x-ray spectrometry. A numerical fit of the diffraction-reflection curves is performed using the Debye-Waller static factor. It is shown that considerably higher crystal perfection of laser heterostructures can be obtained by using as the waveguide layers binary AlAs/GaAs superlattices instead of the solid solution AlGaAs.