Crystallographic orientation-dependent optical properties of InGaAs/GaAs quantum well

Abstract

A numerical approach is introduced to study the optical properties of compressively strained InGaAs/GaAs quantum well (QW) architecture for arbitrary crystal orientation by solving an eight-band k.p Hamiltonian using finite difference method including spin-orbit coupling. Euler's rotation technique is used to modify the wave vector and Hamiltonian matrix in conventional [100] crystal orientation. It is found that there is a substantial correlation between crystal orientation and optical gain spectra. From the MATLAB simulation results, it can be settled that the hole effective mass, optical gain and the threshold current density in [113] orientation deviates exclusively from the others, in particular, the more conventional [100] and [111]. The regular optical gains are inspected as 3100, 3080, 2700, 3300, and 2800 cm−1 in [100], [110], [111], [113], and [131] crystal orientations, respectively, when the carrier injection density is 2 × 1018 cm−3 which shows that highest optical gain are attained in [113] orientation.