S. Nakamura gave an invited talk on his results on lasers and LED's. Most importantly, he reported room-temperature CW operation with 5 mW output power (threshold current 130 mA, threshold voltage 8-10V). The lifetime of the lasers was only 2 seconds under CW operation. These were ridge-type structures with a ridge width of 10 mikrons.

K. Domen of Fujitsu reported theoretical work on optical gain for wurtzite GaN with anisotropic strain in c-plane. This could be accomplished by (1100) SiC substrates. For such a configuration, Dr. Domen finds a reduction of the in-plane effective mass due zo the strain, which could reduce the laser threshold current by 40%.

A. Hangleiter (University of Stuttgart) reported on experimental data for optical gain in GaInN/GaN and GaN/AlGaN structures at room temperature. The results are interpreted as evidence for a localization-related excitonic gain mechanism.

In the post-deadline session, there were two nitride-related papers.

K. Itaya (Toshiba) presented their laser based on cleaved facets on c-face sapphire. The threshold current density was 50 kA/cm².

H. Schweizer (University of Stuttgart) reported on the realization and characterization of optically pumped GaInN/GaN DFB lasers. Single longitudinal mode operation was achieved empoying second-order gratings of various pitches. The lowest threshold power density was around 2 MW/cm²