Large optical cavity AlGaAs buried heterostructure window lasers

Large optical cavity buried heterostructure window lasers in which only the transparent AlGaAs waveguiding layers, and not the active layer, extend to the laser mirrors have been fabricated. These lasers have threshold currents and differential quantum efficiencies comparable to those of regular large optical cavity buried heterostructure lasers in which the active region extends to the laser mirrors, however the window lasers have been operated under pulsed conditions at three times the power at which otherwise identical lasers without windows degrade by catastrophic mirror damage.