Patent ID: 7515622

Claim:
A quantum nanostructure semiconductor laser, comprising: a stripe-shaped ridge having a plurality of V-grooves formed on a compound semiconductor substrate in a direction of laser beam emission, the V-grooves being arrayed in parallel along a surface of the ridge in the direction of laser beam emission, with each V-groove extending orthogonally to the direction of laser beam emission; and an optical waveguide having a trapezoidal shape bounded by higher index crystalline planes on the ridge and that includes a lower cladding layer, a plurality of quantum wires and an upper cladding layer formed in order, each of the plurality of quantum wires being formed to a finite length corresponding to the width of a stripe-shaped ridge, wherein the quantum wires do not project out beyond a width of the ridge, but ends of the quantum wires are converged and closed off with the upper and lower cladding layers toward the higher index crystalline planes to provide a high lateral confinement offset.