Integrated semiconductor lasers and photodetectors

A method for fabricating a vertical cavity laser adjacent to a vertical cavity photodetector, comprising the steps of:

• (a) forming a first mirror on a substrate;
• (b) forming an emission/absorption cavity on said first mirror;
• (c) forming a second mirror on said cavity;
• (d) separating said first mirror, said second mirror and said cavity into segments defining an emitting region and a detecting region;
• and
• (e) lowering the refractive index of a mirror segment in said emitting region.

A method for fabricating a vertical cavity laser adjacent to a vertical cavity photodetector, comprising the steps of:

• (a) forming on a substrate, a multilayered structure comprising a low index contrast, high refractive index first mirror, a second mirror, and an emission/absorption cavity between said first and second mirrors;
• (b) separating said multilayered structure into an emitting region and a detecting region, each said region comprising a first mirror segment, a second mirror segment and a cavity segment between said mirror segments;
• and
• (c) lowering the refractive index of said first mirror segment in said emitting region to create a high index contrast, high reflectivity mirror segment.

A method for fabricating a vertical cavity laser adjacent to a vertical cavity photodetector, comprising the steps of:

• (a) forming an epitaxially grown structure comprising a substrate, a first mirror, a second mirror, and an emission/absorption cavity between said first and second mirrors;
• (b) at least one of said mirrors comprising a low index contrast, high refractive index distributed bragg reflector;
• (c) separating said first mirror, said second mirror and said cavity into segments defining an emitting region and a detecting region;
• and
• (d) lowering the refractive index of said at least on of said mirror segments defined by said low index contrast, high refractive index distributed bragg reflector to create a high index contrast, high reflectivity distributed bragg reflector segment.