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An analytic expression for the gain suppression coefficient of semiconductor laser in terms of carrier temperature and other material parameters is presented. The expression is derived from a density matrix formulation of gain in diode lasers based on a dynamic carrier heating model. We find that in the single mode approximation the theoretical estimate of the gain suppression coefficient is of the order 10−23 m3 in agreement with experimental values. This supports recent direct experimental demonstrations that dynamic carrier heating, rather than spectral hole burning provides the dominant contribution to nonlinear gain in semiconductor lasers.

A concise and fundamentally straightforward physical model that accounts for the nonlinear gain in both semiconductor amplifiers and lasers is presented. Calculations based on this model yield results that agree very well with observed transient gain recovery dynamics in semiconductor laser amplifiers. The value of the symmetric steady-state gain suppression factor is found to be β=1.67×10−23 m3 in good agreement with experiment. The model accounts for a wavelength dependence of the asymmetric part of the nonlinear gain observed in direct mixing experiments observed in semiconductor lasers.

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