Abstract

In long wavelength quantum well lasers the effective electron temperature (T_e) is often a strong function of the pump current and hence the T_e correlates with the carrier concentration n in the active region. On the other hand, the material gain g in the active layer depends on both variables, g=g(n,T_e ). We discuss a convenient way of analyzing this situation, based on considering the contours of constant gain g on the surface g(n,T_e ). This is qualitatively illustrated with two model examples involving quantum well lasers, the long-wavelength quantum well laser with current dominated by the Auger recombination and the unipolar quantum cascade laser.

© Optical Society of America

[Optical Society of America ]

» View Full Text: Acrobat PDF (315 KB)

History
Original Manuscript: November 4, 1997
Published: February 16, 1998

References

1. S. Luryi, "Hot electrons in semiconductor devices", in Hot Electrons in Semiconductors, N. Balkan, ed. (Oxford University Press, 1998) pp. 385-427; http://www.ee.sunysb.edu/~serge/152.dir/152.html
2. V. B. Gorfinkel and S. Luryi, "Fundamental limits for linearity of CATV lasers", J. Lightwave Technol. 13, 252-260 (1995); http://www.ee.sunysb.edu/~serge/133.html
3. M. Silver, E. P. OReilly, and A. R. Adams, Determination of the wavelength dependence of Auger recombination in long-wavelength quantum-well semiconductor lasers using hydrostatic pressure, IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 33, 1557-1566 (1997).
4. Z. Shi, M. Tacke, A. Lambrecht, and H. Bttner, Midinfrared lead salt multi-quantum-well diode lasers with 282 K operation, Appl. Phys. Lett. 66, 2537-2539 (1995).
5. H. K. Choi, G. W. Turner, and H. Q. Le, InAsSb/InAlAs strained quantum-well lasers emitting at 4.5 Pm, Appl. Phys. Lett. 66, 3543-3545 (1995).
6. J. R. Meyer, I. Vurgaftman, R. Q. Yang, and L. R. Ram-Mohan, Type-II and Type-I interband cascade lasers, Electron Lett. 32, 45-46 (1996).
7. J. Faist, F. Capasso, C. Sirtori, D. L. Sivco, J. N. Baillargeon, A. L. Hutchinson, S.-N. G. Chu, and A. Y. Cho, High power mid-infrared (OaPm) quantum cascade lasers operating above room temperature, Appl. Phys. Lett. 68, 3680-3682 (1996).
8. Vera Gorfinkel, Serge Luryi, and Boris Gelmont, "Theory of gain spectra for quantum cascade lasers and temperature dependence of their characteristics at low and moderate carrier concentrations", IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 32, 1995-2003 (1996); http://www.ee.sunysb.edu/~serge/145.html
9. M. V. Kisin, V. B. Gorfinkel, M. A. Stroscio, G. Belenky, and S. Luryi, Influence of complex phonon spectra on intersubband optical gain, J. Appl. Phys. 82, 2031-2038 (1997); http://www.ee.sunysb.edu/~serge/148.pdf

Author Affiliations

Vera Gorfinkel, Mikhail Kisin, Serge Luryi

State University of New York at Stony Brook

Cited By

OSA is able to provide readers links to articles that cite this paper by participating in CrossRef's Cited-By Linking service. In addition to listing OSA journal articles that cite this paper, citing articles from other participating publishers will also be listed.

Advanced Search

Recent ToC Categories (Beta)

• Jan 14 2010 : OSA wins SPARC Innovator award for Optics Express. Read the press release.
• Jan 14 2010 : The Journal of the Optical Society of Korea is now available in the Optics InfoBase!
• Jan 08 2010 : Optics InfoBase now supports export to Mendeley. Learn more about Mendeley for online citation management and sharing.

More News

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea Added to OSA’s Optics InfoBase
  Feb 1, 2010 - The Optical Society (OSA) is pleased to announce that Optics... more
• OSA to Launch New Journal: Biomedical Optics Express
  Jan 20, 2010 - The Optical Society (OSA) today announced it is launching a new... more
• Invisibility Visualized
  Nov 12, 2009 - Scientists and curiosity seekers who want to know what a partially or... more