Dupuis, Russell568406412008-08-282017-05-112008-08-282017-05-112003http://hdl.handle.net/2152/819textDue to the demand for faster and higher bit rate optical communication, long wavelength vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) has been attracting great interests because of its ability of 2D array application. Although InGaAsP/InP edge emitting lasers (EEL) have been well developed and commercially available, the lack of high contrast distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) for the material system forced to find new active materials that can be grown on GaAs substrate to exploit AlGaAs/GaAs DBR pairs. For the purpose, GaAsSb has been studied as the active material. This dissertation describes and discusses the GaAsSb semiconductor material growth, the optimization of the growth conditions, and the characterization of the laser devices fabricated from GaAsSb QW structures. Based on the optimal growth conditions, EELs operating at room temperature in CW mode at the wavelength of 1.27 µm have been demonstrated from the GaAsSb QW structure with GaAsP barriers grown monolithically by MOCVD.electronicengCopyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.Semiconductor lasersThesis3122775