Patent ID: 8377727

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a surface-emitting laser with a surface relief structure which has a stepped structure for controlling a reflectance distribution, comprising: forming a lower distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) on a substrate; forming an active region on the lower DBR; forming on the active region an upper DBR, which comprises a selective oxidation layer and a layered structure, the layered structure being obtained by stacking a fourth semiconductor layer, a third semiconductor layer, and a second semiconductor layer in order from the substrate side; forming a first semiconductor layer on the upper DBR; forming a first dielectric film on the first semiconductor layer; patterning the first dielectric film by forming in the first dielectric film a pattern that defines the surface relief structure and a pattern that defines a mesa structure with use of a same photomask; forming in the first semiconductor layer a pattern of the surface relief structure and a pattern of the mesa structure which are defined by the patterns in the first dielectric film, by etching the first semiconductor layer with use of the first dielectric film which has been patterned in the patterning; forming a second dielectric film on the first semiconductor layer that comprises the pattern of the surface relief structure which has been formed in the first semiconductor layer; forming a photoresist pattern in a manner that covers the pattern of the surface relief structure which comprises the second dielectric film; forming the mesa structure by etching through dry etching the pattern of the mesa structure which has been formed in the first semiconductor layer; forming a current confinement structure by selective oxidation of the selective oxidation layer; removing the first dielectric film and the second dielectric film; exposing a bottom face of the surface relief structure by etching the second semiconductor layer with the first semiconductor layer where the pattern of the surface relief structure has been formed as an etching mask and the third semiconductor layer as an etching stop layer; exposing a top face of the surface relief structure by etching the first semiconductor layer where the pattern of the surface relief structure has been formed, with the second semiconductor layer and the third semiconductor layer as etching stop layer; and protecting a region of the first semiconductor layer that is located on a perimeter of the bottom face of the surface relief structure and that functions as a contact portion, wherein, when an oscillation wavelength of the surface-emitting laser is given as λ and a refractive index of each of the semiconductor layers is given as n, a total thickness of the second semiconductor layer, the third semiconductor layer, and the fourth semiconductor layer is an integral multiple of λ/2n.