Patent ID: 6890778

Claim:
A method of fabrication of a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) device structure, the method comprising the steps of: (i) fabricating a semiconductor active cavity material structure including a multiquantum well (MQW) layer stack sandwiched between bottom and top spacer regions, the top spacer region terminating with a p-layer and a p ++ /n ++ tunnel junction structure on top of said p-layer, each of the p ++ - and p-layers presenting a p-type layer, said active cavity material structure being patterned to form a mesa including at least the upper n ++ layer of the tunnel junction emerging from the underlying p-type layer, and thereby having a structured surface formed by the upper surface of the mesa and the upper surface of the p-type layer outside the mesa; (ii) attaching the structured surface of the active cavity material structure to a substantially planar surface of a n-type semiconductor layer of a first Distributed Bragg Reflector (DBR) stack, thereby causing deformation of an attached surface around the mesa and defining an aperture region, that includes the mesa surrounded by an air gap between the deformed fused surfaces and defines an active region of the device; (iii) forming a second DBR stack on a surface of the active cavity material structure opposite to the structured surface; and (iv) forming ohmic contacts on the VCSEL device structure to enable the electrical current flow through the active region.