Investigation of the optical properties of InGaAsN∕GaAs∕GaAsP multiple-quantum-well laser with 8-band and 10-band k·p model

Abstract

We have used both 10-band and 8-band k·p Hamiltonian to investigate the maximum TE-mode optical gain for the triple quantum wells with In0.35Ga0.65As0.985N0.015 as the active layers and barriers comprised of two unstrained GaAs layers and one tensile-strained GaAs0.82P0.18 layer. The results were compared to a similar structure without the GaAsP layer and were discovered that the presence of the GaAsP barrier reduced the carrier density at threshold condition. However, the characteristics of the optical gain versus radiative current density for both structures are very similar. We also found the conduction band energy dispersion curves calculated by the 8-band model are flatter than the 10-band model due to the larger InGaAsN effective mass used. The transparent carrier density of the 10-band model is smaller than that of the 8-band model. The radiative recombination coefficient B calculated by the two models varies from 3.5×10−11cm3∕s for the 8-band model to 8.0×10−11cm3∕s for the 10-band model. Using Jtot=nwql(AN+BN2+CN3), the calculated Jth of 558A∕cm2 agrees very well with the experimentally observed threshold current density of a 10×1600μm2 broad-area laser.