Abstract

InGaAsP/InP multiple quantum well (MQW) lasers are one of the most important and promising active components for 1.3 or 1.55 μm optical communication systems. There have been a lot of work on the physical phenomena in the MQW lasers. In such an effort, especially in analyzing the small signal modulation dynamics as well as steady state characteristics in the MQW lasers, the carrier density or number in each well is usually assumed to be uniform among all the MQWs. However, it is not correct especially for the InGaAsP / InP MQWs, whose energy discontinuity of the valence band is larger than that of the conduction band, since the transport of holes is much slower. It is of great importance to know how uniformly carriers are distributed in order to investigate the high speed performance of the laser with many number of quantum wells. This theoretical work describes the distribution of both electrons and holes among the InGaAsP / InP MQW lasers by solving coupled rate equations with barrier states, three-dimensional like well states, and two-dimensional well states.

© 1993 Optical Society of America