Optical gain and gain suppression of quantum-well lasers with valence band mixing

Journal Article · Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1990 · IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/3.44912· OSTI ID:6857699

Ahn, D ^[1]; Chuang, S L ^[2]

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1. Dept. of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Pohang Institute of Science and Technology, Pohang 680 (KR)
2. Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (US)

The effects of valence band mixing on the nonlinear gains of quantum-well lasers are studied theoretically. The authors' analysis is based on the multiband effective-mass theory and the density matrix formalism with intraband relaxation taken into account. The gain and the gain-suppression coefficient of a quantum-well laser are calculated from the complex optical susceptibility obtained by the density matrix formulation with the theoretical dipole moments obtained from the multiband effective-mass theory. The calculated gain spectrum shows that there are remarkable differences (both in peak amplitude and spectral shape) between our model with valence band mixing and the conventional parabolic band model. The shape of the gain spectrum calculated by the authors' model becomes more symmetric due to intraband relaxation together with nonparabolic energy dispersions and is closer to the experimental observations when compared with the conventional method using the parabolic band model and the multiband effective-mass calculation without intraband relaxation. Both give quite asymmetric gain spectra. Optical intensity in the GaAs active region is estimated by solving rate equations for the stationary states with nonlinear gain suppression. The authors calculate the mode gain for the resonant mode including the gain suppression, which results in spectral hole burning of the gain spectrum.

• OSTI ID: 6857699
• Journal Information: IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (USA), Vol. 26:1; ISSN 0018-9197
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
SEMICONDUCTOR LASERS
FREQUENCY MIXING
CALCULATION METHODS
DIPOLE MOMENTS
ELECTRON-HOLE COUPLING
GAIN
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
QUANTUM EFFICIENCY
SPECTRAL DENSITY
AMPLIFICATION
EFFICIENCY
FUNCTIONS
LASERS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
SOLID STATE LASERS
SPECTRAL FUNCTIONS
426002* - Engineering- Lasers & Masers- (1990-)
657002 - Theoretical & Mathematical Physics- Classical & Quantum Mechanics
640302 - Atomic
Molecular & Chemical Physics- Atomic & Molecular Properties & Theory