US Patent 7856040 Semiconductor light emitting devices with non-epitaxial upper cladding

The AlGaN upper cladding layer of a nitride laser diode is replaced by a non-epitaxial layer, such as metallic silver. If chosen to have a relatively low refractive index value, the mode loss from absorption in the non-epitaxial cladding layer is acceptably small. If also chosen to have a relatively high work-function, the non-epitaxial layer forms an electrical contact to the nitride semiconductors. An indium-tin-oxide layer may also be employed with the non-epitaxial cladding layer.