Performance study of SQW GaInNAs fabry-perot lasers

Abstract

The work presented here is concerned with studies of the operational characteristics of single-quantum-well GaInNAs/GaAs Fabry-Perot lasers, where identical layer structures with differing cavity lengths are evaluated both experimentally and theoretically. Standard techniques are used to determine the temperature dependence, in the pulsed mode, of I-V, L-I and spectral electroluminescence. Important parameters, such as the threshold current and To, are determined and tabulated for all the structures. The differential and internal quantum efficiency and hence the internal losses for each of the lasers are obtained from the experimental data. The latter is compared with the gain spectra measured using the Hakki-Paoli method and calculated from a simple theory. From the spectral measurements above the lasing threshold, we obtain the temperature dependence of the GaInNAs quantum well effective gap as 0.3 meV/K, which is in good agreement with results published by other groups. However, a better fit is obtained using the Varshni temperature dependence using values of E-0 = 1.058 eV, alpha = 4.8x10(-4) eVK(-2), beta = 284 +/- 167 K. To put our results in perspective, we also present an up-to-date review of similar SQW lasers and suggest improvements to the current structure for enhanced threshold and power characteristics