In a semiconductor laser device, a p-side electrode (114) of a multilayer structure put in contact with the surface of a ridge portion (130) of a second conductive type semiconductor layer group (p-AlGaAs first upper cladding layer (108), p-AlGaAs second upper cladding layer (109), p-GaAs etching stop layer (110), p-AlGaAs third upper cladding layer (111), p-GaAs contact layer (112) and p.sup.+-GaAs contact layer (113)) is formed. The p-side electrode (114) has one or a plurality of high refractive index layers and low refractive index layers formed successively from the side put in contact with the surface of the semiconductor layer group of the second conductive type. The high refractive index layers have a refractive index of not lower than 2.5 with respect to the wavelength band of the emission laser light and a total thickness of not greater than 75 nm, while the low refractive index layers have a refractive index of not higher than 1.0 with respect to the wavelength band of the emission laser light.