Patent ID: 7009216

Claim:
A semiconductor light emitting device comprising: a semiconductor substrate; a semiconductor layered structure provided on the semiconductor substrate and comprised of a lower cladding layer made of semiconductor of a first conductivity type, an active layer having a resonator in a direction parallel to the semiconductor substrate, and an upper cladding layer made of semiconductor of a second conductivity type; an upper electrode connected to the upper cladding layer and extending in a stripe shape in a resonator direction; and a lower electrode connected to the lower cladding layer, wherein the semiconductor layered structure has a photonic crystal structure on a front surface thereof in which a plurality of concave portions or convex portions are arranged periodically in the resonator direction, the photonic crystal structure is configured such that at least part of the photonic crystal structure does not overlap with the upper electrode and the photonic crystal structure and the upper electrode are arranged in the resonator direction as seen in a plan view, when a predetermined voltage is applied between the upper electrode and the lower electrode, a hole supplied from the lower electrode through the lower cladding layer and an electron supplied from the upper electrode through the upper cladding layer are re-coupled to each other within the active layer to thereby generate light in a region of the photonic crystal structure which does not overlap with the upper electrode as seen in the plan view and a region of the photonic crystal structure which overlays with the upper electrode as seen in the plan view, and the light radiates from the region of the photonic crystal structure which does not overlap with the upper electrode as seen in the plan view in a direction perpendicular to the resonator direction.