Abstract

It has been found that inevitable carrier population in the optical confining region of the quantum well (QW) structure (state filling effect) has a significant influence on the threshold current, modulation dynamics, amplitude-phase coupling, and spectral linewidth in QW lasers. The state filling effect on the modulation dynamics and the spectral linewidth can be reduced by employing multiple quantum wells (MQW) in the active region, but the penalty is an increase in threshold/operation current. The simultaneous low threshold operation and high speed operation (at low operation current) of semiconductor lasers are important in high-density applications such as optical interconnect. The challenge is how to reduce the state filling effect in single quantum well (SQW) lasers.

© 1993 Optical Society of America