In a semiconductor laser manufacturing method, a GaN single-crystal substrate is formed by slicing a GaN bulk crystal, grown on a c-plane, parallel to an a-plane which is perpendicular to the c-plane. In this substrate, crystal defects extending parallel to the c-axis direction do not readily exert an influence, and degradation of element characteristics due to crystal defects can be suppressed. Further, because the a-plane is a nonpolar plane, improved light emission efficiency and longer wavelengths can be achieved compared with the c-plane, which is a polar plane. Hence a semiconductor laser manufacturing method of this invention enables further improvement of the element characteristics of the semiconductor laser to be fabricated.