Logarithmic Gain-carrier Density Characteristic of QW Lasers

The relationship between gain and carrier density is analysed.In the quantum well(QW) lasers,initially,the gain increases rapidly with the carrier density and then starts to saturate.It can be seen that QW lasers have a higher differential gain because of the step-like state density,and that the gain saturates at higher carrier densities because of the constant state density of the lowest subband.It is shown that simple ogarithmic gain-carrier density is more accurate than the traditional linearized form for a QW laser.     

Gain, index variation, and linewidth-enhancement factor in 980-nm quantum-well and quantum-dot lasers

An experimental comparative study of the gain, index variation, and linewidth enhancement factor in 980-nm quantum-well (QW) and quantum-dot (QD) lasers structures, designed for high power applications, is presented. The gain spectra of the QW lasers at high injection level revealed three different transition energies, with a low linewidth enhancement factor (/spl sim/1.2) for E2HH2 transitions. Similar values for the linewidth enhancement factor, ranging between 2.5 and 4.5, were found for QW and QD devices, when comparing at similar values of the peak gain. This result is attributed to the contribution of excited state transitions in the measured QD lasers.     

The influence of quantum-well composition on the performance ofquantum dot lasers using InAs-InGaAs dots-in-a-well (DWELL) structures

The optical performance of quantum dot lasers with different dots-in-a-well (DWELL) structures is studied as a function of the well number and the indium composition in the InGaAs quantum well (QW) surrounding the dots. While keeping the InAs quantum dot density nearly constant, the internal quantum efficiency η_i, modal gain, and characteristic temperature of 1-DWELL and 3-DWELL lasers with QW indium compositions from 10 to 20% are analyzed. Comparisons between the DWELL lasers and a conventional In_0.15Ga_0.85As strained QW laser are also made. A threshold current density as low as 16 A/cm² is achieved in a 1-DWELL laser, whereas the QW device has a threshold 7.5 times larger. It is found that η_i and the modal gain of the DWELL structure are significantly influenced by the quantum-well depth and the number of DWELL layers. The characteristic temperature T₀ and the maximum modal gain of the ground-state of the DWELL structure are found to improve with increasing indium in the QW It is inferred from the results that the QW around the dots is necessary to improve the DWELL laser's η_i for the dot densities studied     

InGaN量子阱激光器增益和阈值电流的理论计算

根据现有的材料参数，计算了Ｉｎ０．２Ｇａ０．８Ｎ／Ｉｎ０．０５Ｇａ０．９５Ｎ量子阱激光器的增益、阈值电流密度以及阈值与温度的关系。理论分析表明氮化物蓝绿光激光器的阈值电流密度是ＧａＡｓ材料的５倍以上，但其特征温度可接近５００Ｋ。     

Analysis of differential gain in InGaAs-InGaAsP compressive andtensile strained quantum-well lasers and its application for estimationof high-speed modulation limit

A simplified model that furnishes an intuitive insight for the change in quantum-well (QW) laser gain due to QW strain and quantum confinement is presented. Differential gain for InGaAs-InGaAsP compressive and tensile strained multi-quantum-well (MQW) lasers is studied using the model. The comparison between the calculated and experimental results for lattice-matched and compressive strained MQW lasers shows that this model also gives quantitatively reasonable results. It is found that the variance-band barrier height strongly affects the differential gain, especially for compressively strained MQW lasers. The tensile strained MQW lasers are found to have quite high differential gain, due to the large dipole matrix element for the electron-light-hole transition, in spite of the large valence-band state density. Furthermore, a great improvement in the differential gain is expected by modulation p doping in the tensile strained MQW lasers. The ultimate modulation bandwidth for such lasers is studied using the above results     

Self-Consistent Analysis of Strain-Compensated InGaN–AlGaN Quantum Wells for Lasers and Light-Emitting Diodes

Strain-compensated InGaN–AlGaN quantum wells (QW) are investigated as improved active regions for lasers and light emitting diodes. The strain-compensated QW structure consists of thin tensile-strained AlGaN barriers surrounding the InGaN QW. The band structure was calculated by using a self-consistent 6-band $kcdot p$ formalism, taking into account valence band mixing, strain effect, spontaneous and piezoelectric polarizations, as well as the carrier screening effect. The spontaneous emission and gain properties were analyzed for strain-compensated InGaN–AlGaN QW structures with indium contents of 28%, 22%, and 15% for lasers (light-emitting diodes) emitting at 480 (500), 440 (450), and 405 nm (415 nm) spectral regimes, respectively. The spontaneous emission spectra show significant improvement of the radiative emission for strain-compensated QW for all three structures compared to the corresponding conventional InGaN QW, which indicates the enhanced radiative efficiency for light emitting diodes. Our studies show the improvement of the optical gain and reduction of the threshold current density from the use of strain-compensated InGaN–AlGaN QW as active regions for diode lasers.      

Analysis of the performance of 1.55-μm InGaAs-InP tensilestrained quantum-well lasers

We fabricated 1.55-μm tensile strained InGaAs quantum-well (QW) lasers into broad-area and ridge waveguide lasers, and their performance was analyzed and compared with compressive strained and lattice-matched QW lasers. It is seen that the limitation on the tensile strain to a value less than 0.7%, which is required to prevent the emission wavelength being shorter than 1.55 μm, imposes restrictions on the performance enhancement in several aspects. Broad-area InGaAs QW lasers with a tensile strain of 0.7% show a larger gain coefficient and smaller transparency current density per well than those with InGaAsP QW lasers with a compressive strain of 1.0%. However, the internal quantum efficiency is much smaller than that for compressive ones and the internal optical loss increases rapidly as the number of QW's increases. These are thought to be caused by a smaller conduction band offset and the onset of dislocation generation at the well-barrier interfaces with the number of QW's, respectively. Ridge waveguide lasers with two QW's with tensile strain of 0.7%, which is designed not to exceed the critical thickness for dislocation generation, show smaller modal gain coefficients and inferior temperature characteristics as compared to those with six 0.7% compressive strained QW's and those with three lattice matched InGaAs QW's. However, the modulation bandwidth is measured to be larger than that for one that is compressively strained. It is believed to originate from the small effective capture time of the carriers due to thicker wells     

Effects of carrier heating on laser dynamics-a Monte Carlo study

The static and dynamic properties of semiconductor quantum-well (QW) lasers have traditionally been analyzed by using rate equations that couple cold carriers to photons in the lasing cavity. This assumption of cold carriers, however, has often been disputed because it does not account for heating due to carrier relaxation, hot phonon effects, and spectral hole burning. All these processes affect laser performance significantly by modifying the gain because gain depends on carrier temperature as well as spectral broadening. In this paper, we study the carrier dynamics of QW lasers using a Monte Carlo method and conclude that hot carrier effects in semiconductor lasers are important and need to be considered for the analysis and design of semiconductor lasers     

Theoretical analysis of temperature sensitivity of differentialgain in 1.55-μm InGaAsP-InP quantum-well lasers

We study the temperature sensitivity of the differential gain in InGaAsP-InP strained-layer (SL) quantum-well (QW) lasers operating at a wavelength of 1.55 μm. Electrostatic deformation in conduction-band and valence-band profiles is taken into account by solving Poisson's equation and the effective-mass equations for conduction and valence bands in a self-consistent manner. We demonstrate that electrostatic deformation in both band profiles plays a significant role in determining the temperature sensitivity of the differential gain in 1.55-μm InGaAsP-InP SL QW lasers. The physical mechanism for limiting the differential gain at elevated temperatures is also discussed     

Polarization-dependent gain saturations in quantum-well lasers

Theoretical analyses of polarization-dependent optical gain saturation are given for semiconductor quantum-well (QW) lasers to investigate the conditions of polarization switching and bistable operations. Nonlinear susceptibilities, which give saturation coefficients, are obtained in the perturbative analyses of density matrices, where the relevant electronic states in the QW are calculated by diagonalizing Luttinger's Hamiltonian, thus including valence band mixing. The present formulation is applied to InGaAsP QW lasers with edge-emitting and vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) structures, and the self- and cross-saturation coefficients with parallel and orthogonal optical polarizations are numerically calculated, which are compared with those of bulk lasers. For the edge-emitting case, the saturation coefficients are strongly dependent on the photon energies, and the bistable operation condition is not satisfied in the gain peak, different from a bulk laser which showed only a slight energy dependence. In a VCSEL, the saturation coefficients are also dependent on the photon energies but the bistable operation condition is always satisfied     

The effect of increased valence band offset on the operation of 2μm GaInAsSb-AlGaAsSb lasers

Two and four quantum-well (QW) GaInAsSb-AlGaAsSb lasers emitting at 2 μm are reported. In comparison to previously published data, it is found that higher Al content in the QW barrier improves the internal efficiency, saturated modal gain, and characteristic temperature of the lasers. These results are attributed to an increased valence band offset that provides superior hole confinement in the GaInAsSb QW. A differential efficiency of 74% is observed at 25°C under pulsed conditions for a 900-μm cavity length, 2-QW device, and a record characteristic temperature of 140 K is measured for a 4-QW laser     

Low-threshold operation of 1.3-μm GaAsSb quantum-well lasersdirectly grown on GaAs substrates

GaAsSb quantum-well (QW) edge-emitting lasers grown on GaAs substrates were demonstrated. The optical quality of the QW was improved by optimizing the growth conditions and introducing a multi-QW to increase the gain. As a result, 1.27-μm lasing of a GaAs_0.66 Sb_0.34-GaAs double-QW laser was obtained with a low-threshold current density of 440 A/cm², which is comparable to that in conventional InP-based long-wavelength lasers. 1.30 μm lasing with a threshold current density of 770 A/cm² was also obtained by increasing the antimony content to 0.36. GaAsSb QW was found to be a suitable material for use in the active layer of a 1.3-μm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers     

High-speed modulation of long-wavelength In1-xGaxAsyP1-y andIn1-x-yGaxAlyAs strained quantum-welllasers

In_1-xGa_xAs_1-yP_y quantum-well (QW) lasers with compressive strain and In_1-x-yGa_xAl_yAs QW lasers with two strain types (compressively strained and lattice matched) for 1.55-μm telecommunication applications are investigated both in the steady-state and high-speed microwave modulation schemes. Under steady-state electric bias, the gain and intrinsic loss are measured based on the well-known Hakki-Paoli method from below threshold to threshold. The photon lifetime is obtained from this measurement. A comprehensive theoretical gain model with realistic band structure, including valence band mixing and many-body effects, is then used to fit the experimentally obtained modal gain profiles and extract the carrier density and, therefore, the differential gain. In the high-speed microwave modulation scheme, the experimental modulation response curves are fitted by the theory and parameters such as the differential gain and K factor are obtained. The differential gain agrees very well with the value obtained from the steady-state direct optical gain measurement. The comparison of two material systems will be important to design high-bandwidth high-performance semiconductor lasers in order to meet requirements of 1.55-μm telecommunication applications     

The influences of refractive index dispersion on the modal gain ofa quantum-well laser

A new self-consistent method (SCM) for single-quantum-well (SQW) AlGaAs-GaAs diode lasers is introduced to study systematically the influences of refractive-index dispersion on TE modal gain. The refractive-index dispersion of QW layers is calculated by the density matrix method. It is affected by the effective propagation constant of guided mode. Likewise, the transverse guided mode of QW lasers, as obtained by the transfer matrix method, is also influenced by the refractive-index dispersion. SCM, using the density matrix and transfer matrix methods self-consistently, provides the TE modal gain spectra. SCM's calculated results are compared with those of Dumke's approximation and show a decrease in energy of modal gain peak and a decline of modal gain values at high emission energies. The differences between these two methods are seen to increase with an increase of well width and to be unrelated to barrier height. Although not treated formally in this paper, we suggest that SCM results show a significantly superior match to real phenomena     

High temperature characteristics of strained InGaAs/lnGaAsP quantumwell lasers lattice matched to GaAs

The effect of high temperature on the threshold current density and the gain of In_xGa_1-xAs/InGaAsP (E_g=1.6 eV) QW lasers lattice matched to GaAs is investigated theoretically. These results are also compared with those of In_x Ga_1-xAs/GaAs QW lasers. It is found that better performance can be achieved in InGaAs/InGaAsP lasers compared to InGaAs/GaAs lasers at high temperature. This is due to the fact that the temperature dependence of the threshold carrier density for InGaAs/InGaAsP lasers is weaker than that for InGaAs/GaAs lasers. The calculated characteristic temperature is in good agreement with reported experimental results     

Theory of gain, modulation response, and spectral linewidth in AlGaAs quantum well lasers

We investigate theoretically a number of important issues related to the performance of AlGaAs quantum well (QW) semiconductor lasers. These include a basic derivation of the laser gain, the linewidth enhancement factor α, and the differential gain constant in single and multiple QW structures. The results reveal the existence of gain saturation with current in structures with a small number of wells. They also point to a possible two-fold increase in modulation bandwidth and a ten-fold decrease in the spectral laser linewidth in a thin QW laser compared to a conventional double heterostructure laser.     

Linewidth study of InAs-InGaAs quantum dot distributed feedback lasers

The linewidth of laterally loss-coupled distributed feedback (DFB) lasers based on InAs quantum dots (QDs) embedded in an InGaAs quantum well (QW) is investigated. Narrow linewidth operation of QD devices is demonstrated. A linewidth-power product less than 1.2 MHz /spl middot/ mW is achieved in a device of 300-/spl mu/m cavity length for an output power up to 2 mW. Depending on the gain offset of the DFB modes from the QD ground state gain peak, linewidth rebroadening or a floor is observed at a cavity photon density of about 1.2-2.4/spl times/10/sup 15/ cm/sup -3/, which is much lower than in QW lasers. This phenomenon is attributed to the enhanced gain compression observed in QDs.     

Strain dependence of the linewidth enhancement factor inlong-wavelength tensile- and compressive-strained quantum-well lasers

Values of the linewidth enhancement factor α in InGaAs/InGaAsP tensile- and compressive-strained quantum-well (QW) Fabry-Perot lasers are measured and compared to calculated values. The strain dependence of the measured values agrees with that of the calculated values: Values of α are smaller for tensile-strained QW lasers than for compressive-strained QW lasers, and α decreases with the increase of tensile or compressive strain. According to the model used in the calculation, short-wavelength-composition barriers reduce α in compressive-strained QW lasers, and α for such lasers is expected to be as low as that for the tensile-strained QW lasers     

Threshold current analysis of compressive strain (0-1.8%) inlow-threshold, long-wavelength quantum well lasers

A comprehensive study of the effect of compressive strain on the threshold current performance of long-wavelength (1.5 μm) quantum-well (QW) lasers is presented. Model predictions of threshold currents in such devices identify QW thickness as a parameter that must be considered in optimizing laser performance when Auger currents are present. Experimental comparisons between strained and unstrained devices reveal strain-induced reductions in internal transparency current density per QW from 66 to 40 A/cm², an increase in peak differential modal gain from 0.12 to 0.23 cm/A, and evidence for the elimination of intervalence band absorption as compressive strain increases from 0 to 1.8%. However, most of these improvements arise in the first ~1% of compressive strain. To fabricate low-threshold 1.5-μm buried heterostructure (BH) devices in InP using the strained QW active regions an optimized design which shows that threshold current is at its lowest when the stripe width is approximately 0.6-0.7 μm is derived. Results for uncoated BH lasers are reported