Oxidation kinetics of AlAs and (AlGa)As layers in GaAs-based diode laser structures: comparative analysis of available experimental data

An understanding of the kinetics of the steam oxidn. of AlAs and (AlGa)As layers is crucial to maintain good control of the process of manufg. modern GaAs-based diode microresonator vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). Math., the process has been described in our previous publications. Our theor. equations contain, however, a few adjustable parameters, which should be found exptl. Therefore, in this paper, an extensive anal. of existing exptl. results (including ours) is performed. It enables us to ext. the phys. parameters describing oxidn. kinetics for the AlAs and (AlGa)As oxidn. process. While some scattering in the parameters is found from measurements reported by different groups, the same general trends are obsd. These results support our phys. understanding of the oxidn. process. Nevertheless, the oxidn. process still needs some exptl. investigations to establish all conditions influencing its kinetics and to enable reproducible oxidn. results obtained under assumed identical technol. conditions. It has been confirmed that currently theor. modeling cannot offer a reasonable a priori control of the oxidn. process without a careful calibration of a given oxidn. set-up and procedure. However, the simulation may enable detn. of safe limits of the process, esp. important in the fabrication of small-size microresonator VCSELs.