A theoretical comparison of the pressure dependence of the threshold current of phosphorus-, aluminium- and nitrogen-based 1.3 µm lasers

Abstract

A comparative study of the three competing laser materials, InGaAsP-InP, AlGaInAs-InP and InGaAsN-GaAs, has been undertaken, for the first time, involving threshold characteristics with pressure. In our theoretical study we investigate the factors that influence the material gain performance, the threshold characteristics and the pressure dependence of each of the laser systems. We find that AlGaInAs and InGaAsN active layer materials have substantially better material gain performance than the commonly used InGaAsP at room temperature. Both radiative and non-radiative current contributions for laser systems are compared using basic equations, which makes our analysis particularly attractive owing to its simplicity and ability to predict the main effects involved. We have found that the estimated variation of phonon-assisted Auger rates with pressure in the N-based system has a slower decrease than that of the other two laser systems. The threshold carrier density n th in the N-based system increases with pressure whereas it decreases in Al-and P-based laser systems. This opposite variation changes the overall behaviour of the threshold current in these three competing laser systems. Our theoretical calculations indicate a significant increase of the radiative to non-radiative recombination current in the N-based laser system. This result highlights the intrinsic superiority of the N-based laser system.

Comparison of the band alignment of strained and strain-compensated GaInNAs QWs on GaAs and InP substrates

“…For the band structures of laser systems, the material parameters except for the band gap energies are linearly interpolated from those of binary materials [28,29]. We calculate the bulk band gap energy of GaInNAs by means of band-anti-crossing model [18] and the details of the calculations can be found in our recent paper [30].…”

Hydrostatic Pressure Dependent Optoelectronic Properties of InGaAsN/GaAs Spherical Quantum Dots for Laser Diode Applications

“…We have taken constant carrier concentration as 1.5 × 10 18 cm −3 . The threshold current density is found to enhance with the application of hydrostatic pressure for all the values of dot radii . It is also observed that the threshold current density is increased when the pressure effect is included.…”

Pressure and Temperature Dependence of Threshold Current in Semiconductor Lasers Based on InGaAs/GaAs Quantum-Well Systems

“…The simple scheme described above allows the calculation of the maximum gain as a function of carrier density in the well [3,7], and thus its dependence on the temperature and hydrostatic pressure. Assuming that the dominant carrier recombination process is the radiative recombination (i.e., neglecting nonradiative recombination paths such as the Auger recombination), the radiative part of the threshold current density can be written as [3,7] …”