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Notes: The possibility of replacing Pt in the Ti/Pt/Au base and traditionally used metallurgical structure by Ni, while bonding InP laser chip to a submount with AuSn (80% Au) solder, has been investigated. Various Ni-based metal alloys have been prepared by evaporation. Reflow experiments were conducted in a chamber under forming gas-controlled ambient. The Ti/Ni/AuSn system provided much longer surface local freezing duration compared to the Ti/Pt/AuSn system. Scanning electron microscopy analysis revealed a smoother surface morphology for the Ti/Ni/AuSn system after the metal refroze. Auger electron spectroscopy depth profiles indicated the formation of a Ni-Sn-Au interacted layer. The interaction took place in two steps: the first stage was the dissolution of Ni into the Au-Sn liquid followed by precipitation of a Ni-Sn-Au intermetallic compound; the second stage was a solid-state interdiffusion of Sn, Au, and Ni which occured in the interacted layer and in the original Ni layer. The latter step was a diffusion-controlled process, resulting in a very slow growth rate. Both Au and Sn reacted to form Ni alloy layers of almost equal thickness, regardless of the reaction duration (up to about 5 min). This intensive reaction, however, did not lead to full consumption of the Ti interfacial layer, which provided an excellent adhesion layer between the submount and the metallurgical structure.

Notes: Instability in the output of dc-biased surface emitting lasers due to an external cavity effect was observed. The output power spectrum exhibited multiple peaks with spacing corresponding to exactly the round-trip delay in silica fibers with length ranging from 2 m to 2 km. The magnitude of the peaks was enhanced in the spectral region centered at the laser relaxation frequency. With increased feedback, the background of the output spectrum was found to increase, indicating the presence of optical chaos. Numerical simulation based on the rate equation analysis was found to agree with the experiment, indicating the surface emitting lasers are well described by the rate equation and are susceptible to feedback as the edge emitting lasers.

Notes: GaAs/AlGaAs vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with two semiconductor distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) were grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The threshold current was found to be 20–50% less on an average for VCSELs grown on the 4° off-orientation (001) substrates than those on the on-orientation ones. The lower threshold current was attributed to the smoother interfaces of the Al0.1Ga0.9As/AlAs DBRs in the off-orientation growth observed by transmission electron microscopy. A threshold current and current density of 12 mA and 10.5 kA/cm2 were measured with an emission efficiency of 0.2 mW/mA.

Notes: Modifications to reduce the series resistance in p-type semiconductor distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR) consisting of ten pairs of quarter-wavelength GaAs (high refractive index)/Al0.7Ga0.3As (low index) layers were made by inserting an intermediate Al0.35Ga0.65As layer or a 200 A(ring) superlattice of GaAs(10 A(ring))/Al0.7Ga0.3As (10 A(ring)) at the GaAs/Al0.7Ga0.3As heterointerfaces. The specific DBR series resistance was reduced by two orders of magnitude to about 6.2×10−5 Ω cm2. These modifications did not alter the optical reflectivity and nearly identical reflection spectra were measured.

Notes: Transverse mode emission characteristics of gain-guided surface emitting lasers at 0.85 μm were investigated. Up to six nondegenerate circularly symmetrical modes were observed with detunings between the adjacent modes around 2.5 A(ring). Numerical simulations were performed. The calculated beam sizes, difference of modal gains to account for the side mode suppression ratio when operated with one dominant mode, and wavelength detunings agreed with experiments. Numerical simulations also predict that the mirror loss due to Gaussian beam diffraction is nonnegligible for the 1.3–1.55 μm devices.

Notes: We demonstrated the first successful growth of 1.5 μm strained-layer InGaAs/InGaAsP multi-quantum-well (MQW) distributed feedback (DFB) lasers by chemical beam epitaxy (CBE). In these DFB wafers, a quaternary grating is placed at the bottom of the MQW stack with an InP spacer layer. Studies by transmission electron microscopy show that defect-free InP regrowth was achieved with no mass transport needed over the grating corrugations before regrowth. With CBE regrowth the shapes of the gratings were well preserved. The InP overlayer also very effectively smoothed out the quaternary surface corrugations resulting in very flat MQW structures. Buried-heterostructure 6-QW DFB lasers (250 μm long and as-cleaved) operated at 1.55 μm with cw threshold currents 10–15 mA and slope efficiencies up to 0.35 mW/mA (both facets). Side-mode suppression ratios (SMSR) as high as 49 dB was obtained. The laser operated in the same DFB mode with SMSR staying above 40 dB from threshold and throughout the entire current range even at high temperatures (70 °C checked).

Notes: We report the chemical-beam epitaxial (CBE) growth of InP/InGaAsP Bragg mirrors around 1.55 μm wavelength region. Mirrors with nearly 100% reflectivity and with more than 400 A(ring) flat top region in the Bragg band have been achieved by using 45 pairs of InP (1348 A(ring)) and InGaAsP (1216 A(ring), λg=1.45 μm) quarter wavelength layers which have a total thickness of 11.5 μm. Excellent uniformity of the layer thickness and optical quality in both horizontal and vertical directions were obtained. This demonstrates the unique capability of CBE in maintaining uniform and reproducible growth of InP/InGaAsP during a long growth period.

Notes: Summary The protective activity of the bisdioxopiperazine ICRF-187 against the cardiotoxicity of doxorubicin was evaluated in the rat using both functional and histological assays. Animals that had received a single i. v. dose of doxorubicin (4 mg/kg) alone were compared with those that had been pretreated with a single i. v. injection of saline or ICRF-187 (40 or 60 mg/kg). All rats showed a transient reduction in body weight during the first 3 weeks after drug administration. The greatest reduction (∼16%) was observed in animals that had received a combination of ICRF-187 (40 or 60 mg/kg) and doxorubicin. Deaths related to cardiotoxicity were observed only in rats that had received doxorubicin alone and in those treated with saline; most of the deaths occurred at between 8 and 13 weeks after drug administration. Sequential assessments of heart function showed a persistent depression of cardiac output in animals that had received doxorubicin, with or without pretreatment with ICRF-187. The reduction in cardiac output observed in rats that had been pretreated with ICRF-187 (40 or 60 mg/kg) amounted to ∼15% and ∼30% after 12 and 20 weeks, respectively, indicating that cardioprotection was only partial. Nevertheless, this represented a marked improvement as compared with the ∼35% reduction in cardiac output measured at 12 weeks in animals that had received doxorubicin but without pretreatment with ICRF-187. Histological examination of animals that had died during the course of the study and had received doxorubicin after pretreatment with saline revealed severe myocardial lesions typical of doxorubicin-induced damage. In contrast, animals that had been pretreated with ICRF-187 and survived for up to 20 weeks after treatment showed a marked amelioration of these lesions. The present findings may be interpreted as a true cardioprotection or a delay in the onset of the cardiotoxicity of doxorubicin resulting from pretreatment with the bisdioxopiperazine ICRF-187. Although prior and ongoing clinical trials clearly indicate that ICRF-187 protects patients well against doxorubicin-induced heart damage, further investigations are required beforehigh doses of ICRF-187 can be used as a means of increasing the protective activity of this drug against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity.

Notes: Summary A rat model was used to evaluate the general acute toxicity and the late cardiotoxicity of 4 mg/kg doxorubicin (DOX) given either as free drug or in the form of threeN-(2-hydroxypropyl)methacrylamide (HPMA) copolymer conjugates. In these HPMA copolymers, DOX was covalently bound via peptide linkages that were either non-biodegradable (Gly-Gly) or degradable by lysosomal proteinases (Gly-Phe-Leu-Gly). In addition, one biodegradable conjugate containing galactosamine was used; this residue was targeted to the liver. Over the first 3 weeks after the i.v. administration of free and polymer-bound DOX, all animals showed a transient reduction in body weight. However, the maximal reduction in body weight seen in animals that received polymer-bound DOX (4 mg/kg) was significantly lower than that observed in those that received free DOX (4 mg/kg) or a mixture of the unmodified parent HPMA copolymer and free DOX (4 mg/kg;P〈0.01). Throughout the study (20 weeks), deaths related to cardiotoxicity were observed only in animals that received either free DOX or the mixture of HPMA copolymer and free DOX; in these cases, histological investigations revealed marked changes in the heart that were consistent with DOX-induced cardiotoxicity. Sequential measurements of cardiac output in surviving animals that received either free DOX or the mixture of HPMA copolymer and free DOX showed a reduction of ≈30% in function beginning at the 4th week after drug administration. The heart rate in these animals was ≈12% lower than that measured in age-matched control rats (P〈0.05). Animals that were given the HPMA copolymer conjugates containing DOX exhibited no significant change in cardiac output throughout the study (P〈0.05). In addition, no significant histological change was observed in the hearts of animals that received DOX in the form of HPMA copolymer conjugates and were killed at the end of the study. However, these animals had shown a significant increase in heart rate beginning at 8 weeks after drug administration (P〈0.01). This study demonstrates that covalent binding of DOX to HPMA copolymer conjugates via both stable and biodegradable peptidyl linkages considerably reduces both the general acute toxicity and the late cardiotoxicity of DOX in the rat and could offer the potential for improving the therapeutic index in the clinical application of DOX.