Abstract: A light emitting semiconductor device comprises an upper cladding layer (106) consisting of a first upper cladding layer (106a) provided on an active layer (105) and a second upper cladding layer (106b) provided on the first upper cladding layer (106a) to increase the light emitting efficiency and reduce the defective ratio in formation of a patterned layer. The energy band gap (Eg(106a)) of the first upper cladding layer (106a) is larger than the energy band gap (Eg(106b)) of the second upper cladding layer (106b), which is larger than the energy band gap (Eg(105)) of the active layer (105). One of a patterned layer, an dielectric interlayer (109) has an etched region at a predetermined area thereof so that at least a part of the upper cladding layer (106) or a second conductive type semiconductor region (108) is exposed.