Characterization of Effective Masses and Optical Gain in Strained Quantum-Well Lasers

Abstract

Introduction of strain into quantum-well lasers produces many desirable effects such as lower threshold current and improved differential gain. However, the effect of strain and its modelling for In1xGaxAs and In1-xGaxAsyP1-y multiple quantum-well can be rather complicated. The complication of the model is worsened by the large parameter space of the above compounds. For a specific device application, there is infinite number of possible combinations for material compositions when strain is present. From the engineering point of view, simple and explicit formulas for the strain effect are desirable. With this motivation in mind, we have used an efficient analytical model based on Luttinger—Kohn Hamiltonian to determine valence band structure, hole effective masses and optical gain for strained-layer quantum-well stuctures. Despite several recent efforts [1-3] the complete picture of hole effective masses is