Patent ID: 8300671

Claim:
A surface emitting laser, comprising: a group-III-V compound substrate; a cavity region formed on the group-III-V compound substrate, the cavity including an active layer, and a current confinement layer that has an aluminum oxide compound and is configured to confine a current path, through which a current is to be injected into the active layer, to a current injection portion of the current confinement layer; an upper distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) minor and a lower DBR minor formed on the substrate, and sandwiching the cavity region; and a pseudo graded composition layer including first and second pseudo graded composition layers one of which is formed directly above the current confinement layer and the other is formed directly beneath the current confinement layer, the pseudo graded composition layer having an aluminum composition ratio decreasing monotonically as a distance from the current confinement layer increases; wherein the first pseudo graded composition layer includes an oxidation stop layer, a first, oxidized region which has a change rate of the aluminum composition ratio lower than that of the oxidation stop layer, and in which the first pseudo graded composition layer is oxidized from an interface with the current confinement layer to at least a portion of the oxidation stop layer, and a second, non-oxidized region which is outside the first region, and the current injection portion of the current confinement layer is in direct contact with the second region of the first pseudo graded composition layer.