Surface emitting laser

A surface emitting laser, comprising:

• a group-III-V compound substrate;
• a cavity region formed on the group-III-V compound substrate, the cavity region including an active layer;
• an upper distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) minor and a lower DBR minor formed on the group-III-V compound substrate, and sandwiching the cavity region, wherein at least a portion of either one of the upper DBR minor and the lower DBR minor includes a current confinement layer that has an aluminum oxide compound and is configured to confine a current path, through which a current is to be injected into the active layer, to a current injection portion of the current confinement layer;
• a pseudo graded composition layer including first and second pseudo graded composition layers one of which is formed directly above the current confinement layer and the other is formed on directly beneath the current confinement layer, the pseudo graded composition layer having an aluminum composition ratio decreasing monotonically as a distance from the current confinement layer increases;
• wherein
• the first pseudo graded composition layer includes
• an oxidation stop layer,
• a first, oxidized region which has a change rate of the aluminum composition ratio lower than that of the oxidation stop layer, and in which the first pseudo graded composition layer is oxidized from an interface with the current confinement layer to at least a portion of the oxidation stop layer, and
• a second, non-oxidized region which is outside the first region, and
• the current injection portion of the current confinement layer is in direct contact with the second region of the first pseudo graded composition layer.