Carrier and Light Trapping in Graded Quantum Well Laser Structures

We investigated the carrier and light trapping in GaInAs/AlGaAs single quantum well laser structures by means of time resolved photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopy. The influence of the shape and depth of the confinement potential and of the cavity geometry was studied by using different AlGaAs/GaAs short-period superlattices as barriers. Our results show that grading the optical cavity improves considerably both carrier and light trapping in the quantum well, and that the trapping efficiency is enhanced by increasing the graded confining potential.Comment: PDF-format, 15 pages (including 4 figures), Applied Physics Letters (June 2000

Exciton lifetime and emission polarization dispersion in strongly in-plane asymmetric nanostructures

We present experimental and theoretical investigation of exciton recombination dynamics and the related polarization of emission in highly in-plane asymmetric nanostructures. Considering general asymmetry- and size-driven effects, we illustrate them with a detailed analysis of InAs/AlGaInAs/InP elongated quantum dots. These offer a widely varied confinement characteristics tuned by size and geometry that are tailored during the growth process, which leads to emission in the application-relevant spectral range of 1.25-1.65 {\mu}m. By exploring the interplay of the very shallow hole confining potential and widely varying structural asymmetry, we show that a transition from the strong through intermediate to even weak confinement regime is possible in nanostructures of this kind. This has a significant impact on exciton recombination dynamics and the polarization of emission, which are shown to depend not only on details of the calculated excitonic states but also on excitation conditions in the photoluminescence experiments. We estimate the impact of the latter and propose a way to determine the intrinsic polarization-dependent exciton light-matter coupling based on kinetic characteristics.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

Electrical control of inter-dot electron tunneling in a quantum dot molecule

We employ ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy to directly monitor electron tunneling between discrete orbital states in a pair of spatially separated quantum dots. Immediately after excitation, several peaks are observed in the pump-probe spectrum due to Coulomb interactions between the photo-generated charge carriers. By tuning the relative energy of the orbital states in the two dots and monitoring the temporal evolution of the pump-probe spectra the electron and hole tunneling times are separately measured and resonant tunneling between the two dots is shown to be mediated both by elastic and inelastic processes. Ultrafast (< 5 ps) inter-dot tunneling is shown to occur over a surprisingly wide bandwidth, up to ~8 meV, reflecting the spectrum of exciton-acoustic phonon coupling in the system

Development of high-speed directly-modulated DFB and DBR lasers with surface gratings

The conventional distributed feedback and distributed Bragg reflector edge-emitting lasers employ buried gratings, which require two or more epitaxial growth steps. By using lateral corrugations of the ridge-waveguide as surface gratings the epitaxial overgrowth is avoided, reducing the fabrication complexity, increasing the yield and reducing the fabrication cost. The surface gratings are applicable to different materials, including Al-containing ones and can be easily integrated in complex device structures and photonic circuits. Single-contact and multiple contact edge-emitting lasers with laterally-corrugated ridge waveguide gratings have been developed both on GaAs and InP substrates with the aim to exploit the photon-photon resonance in order to extend their direct modulation bandwidth. The paper reports on the characteristics of such surface-grating-based lasers emitting both at 1.3 and 1.55 μm and presents the photon-photon resonance extended small-signal modulation bandwidth (> 20 GHz) achieved with a 1.6 mm long single-contact device under direct modulation. Similarly structured devices, with shorter cavity lengths are expected to exceed 40 GHz smallsignal modulation bandwidth under direct modulatio

Carrier Dynamics in a Tunneling Injection Quantum Dot Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

The process of tunneling injection is known to improve the dynamical characteristics of quantum well and quantum dot lasers; in the latter, it also improves the temperature performance. The advantage of the tunneling injection process stems from the fact that it avoids hot carrier injection, which is a key performance-limiting factor in all semiconductor lasers. The tunneling injection process is not fully understood microscopically and therefore it is difficult to optimize those laser structures. We present here a numerical study of the broad band carrier dynamics in a tunneling injection quantum dot gain medium in the form of an optical amplifier operating at 1.55 um. Charge carrier tunneling occurs in a hybrid state that joins the quantum dot first excited state and the confined quantum well - injection well states. The hybrid state, which is placed energetically roughly one LO phonon above the ground state and has a spectral extent of about 5 meV , dominates the carrier injection to the ground state. We calculate the dynamical response of the inversion across the entire gain spectrum following a short pulse perturbation at various wavelengths and for two bias currents. At a high bias of 200 mA, the entire spectrum exhibits gain; at 30 mA, the system exhibits a mixed gain - absorption spectrum. The carrier dynamics in the injection well is calculated simultaneously. We discuss the role of the pulse excitation wavelengths relative to the gain spectrum peak and demonstrate that the injection well responds to all perturbation wavelengths, even those which are far from the region where the tunneling injection process dominates