Band structure and the optical gain of GaInNAs/GaAs quantum wells modeled within 10-band and 8-band kp model

Abstract

The band structure and optical gain have been calculated for GaInNAs/GaAs quantum wells (QWs) with various nitrogen concentrations within the 10-band and 8-band kp models. Two approaches to calculate optical properties of GaInNAs/GaAs QWs have been compared and discussed in the context of available material parameters for dilute nitrides and the conduction band nonparabolicity due to the band anti-crossing (BAC) interaction between the N-related resonant level and the conduction band of a host material. It has been clearly shown that this nonparabolicity can be neglected in optical gain calculations since the dispersion of conduction band up to the Femi level is very close to parabolic for carrier concentrations typical for laser operation, i.e., 5 × 1018 cm−3. This means that the 8-band kp model when used to calculate the optical gain is very realistic and much easier to apply in QWs containing new dilute nitrides for which the BAC parameters are unknown. In such an approach, the energy gap and electron effective mass for N-containing materials are needed, instead of BAC parameters. These parameters are available experimentally much easier than BAC parameters.