This method consists in epitaxially growing, on a semiconductor (2, 1), a lower semiconductor confinement layer (4), a semiconductor guide layer (6) and an upper semiconductor confinement layer (8), of like conductivity type, the guide layer interposed between the confinement layers having a forbidden energy band lower than that of the confinement layers, in etching the upper layer to form a guide-ribbon one end of which defines a first step (12), the latter terminating in a lateral widening (28a) in a plane parallel to the epitaxially-grown layers, in etching the cleared guide layer to form a second step (16) adjacent to the first step, in epitaxially growing a detector semiconductor layer (18) of this conductivity type, whose forbidden energy band is lower than that of the confinement layers and of the guide layer, in removing the portion of the detector layer covering the guide-strip, and in forming the detector in the detector layer, opposite the steps so as to produce an end-coupling between the guide layer and the detector. …IMAGE…
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