Self‐pulsations are induced in broad area diode lasers by including an extra layer functioning as a saturable absorber. The absorption of this layer and its coupling to the photon field can be tuned via the layer thickness and its distance to the active layer. In the case of an Al0.13GaAs bulk active layer a GaAs absorber of 4 nm thickness at a distance of 0.2 &mgr;m induces stable oscillations with frequencies of 300–700 MHz in a current range just above the threshold. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.