Modeling spatial effects in multi-longitudinal-mode semiconductor lasers
- Departament de Fisica i Enginyeria Nuclear, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Colom 11, E-08222 Terrassa (Spain)
The multi-longitudinal-mode dynamics of a semiconductor laser is studied theoretically, based on traveling-wave equations for the slowly varying amplitudes of the counterpropagating optical fields in the laser cavity, coupled to an equation for the carrier population dynamics. The model considers key ingredients describing the semiconductor medium, such as the spatial variations of the carriers and optical fields in the longitudinal direction, a parabolic frequency-dependent gain and phase-amplitude coupling, and does not assume a priori a fixed number of active longitudinal modes. We find deterministic out-of-phase modal oscillations which leave the sum of total modal intensities nearly constant. These oscillations become faster as the injection current increases, in good agreement with recent experimental observations. In our model the origin of modal oscillations is spatial hole burning in the envelope of the carrier grating, which is due to the interaction of different longitudinal modes. We also observe switching and hopping of the lasing modes in accordance with the experiments.
- OSTI ID:
- 20787166
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 73; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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