Electrical and Optical Gain Lever Effects in InGaAs Double Quantum-Well Diode Lasers

In multisection laser diodes, the amplitude or frequency modulation (AM or FM) efficiency can be improved using the gain lever effect. To study gain lever, InGaAs double quantum-well (DQW) edge-emitting lasers have been fabricated with integrated passive waveguides and dual sections providing a range of split ratios from 1:1 to 9:1. Both the electrical and the optical gain lever have been examined. An electrical gain lever with greater than 7-dB enhancement of AM efficiency was achieved within the range of appropriate dc biasing currents, but this gain dropped rapidly outside this range. We observed a 4-dB gain in the optical AM efficiency under nonideal biasing conditions. This value agreed with the measured gain for the electrical AM efficiency under similar conditions. We also examined the gain lever effect under large signal modulation for digital logic switching applications. To get a useful gain lever for optical gain quenched logic, a long control section is needed to preserve the gain lever strength and a long interaction length between the input optical signal and the lasing field of the diode must be provided. The gain lever parameter space has been fully characterized and validated against numerical simulations of a semi-3-D hybrid beam propagation method (BPM) model for the coupled electron-photon rate equation. We find that the optical gain lever can be treated using the electrical injection model, once the absorption in the sample is known.