We propose and demonstrate a novel approach to the coating of semiconductor laser facets. In this approach, processed semiconductor lasers are cleaved in a high‐vacuum system immediately followed by coating of the vacuum‐exposed facet with a very thin Si layer (≤100 A˚) and a large band gap dielectric (Al2O3) layer. The Si layer is sufficiently thin to avoid the formation of quantized bound states in the Si. GaAs coated with thin Si and Al2O3have a higher luminescence yield and a lower surface recombination velocity than bare GaAs surfaces as well as GaAs surfaces coated with Al2O3only. A surface recombination velocity of 3×104cm/s has been obtained using a modified dead layer model for the Si/Al2O3sample. It is also shown that lasers which are cleaved in vacuum and subsequently coated with Si and Al2O3have improved properties including an increased threshold for catastrophic optical damage. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.