In this work, use of plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition of amorphous hydrogenated silicon nitride (PECVD a-SiN:H) films (deposited utilizing SiH 4 and NH 3 ) as insulators for the realization of buried ridge structure (BRS) Fabry-Perot and distributed feed back (DFB) optoelectronic laser devices is focussed upon. To this aim, on the one hand a-SiN x :H films are required to have a high dielectric strength and, on the other hand, the sequence semiconductor/dielectric/metallization must, as a whole, show a good resistance to thermal and mechanical treatments occurring during the device processing. Values for these properties are strictly related to the dielectric characteristic quality. Optimizing the deposition conditions, a-SiN x :H films with Si/N ratio = 0.75, hydrogen percentage 25%, refractive index = 1.92(at 632 nm), optical gap = 4.8 eV and film density of 2.5 g/cm 3 have been obtained. This material shows a dielectric strength of 10 7 V/cm, resistivity of 5 10 1 4 Ω cm and a good spatial uniformity and time stability of the dielectric properties. The mechanical adhesion has been checked by using special tests performed on actual laser devices. No significant detachments of the TiPtAu/a-SiN:H sequence have been observed with either p-side down or p-side up mounting configuration. BRS Fabry-Perot and DFB lasers devices with state-of-art optical and electrical characteristics have been manufactured.