Selective excitation and photoinduced bleaching of defects in InAlGaAs/GaAs high-power diode lasers

Abstract

Mounting-induced defects in semiconductor quantum-well (QW) lasers are investigated by photocurrent spectroscopy. The defects are located in the laser waveguides and give rise to an absorption band below the QW band gap with a maximum absorption cross section of σ=2×10−15 cm2. We observe a nonlinear fully reversible photobleaching of the defects and a resulting increase of QW photocurrent upon continuous wave irradiation of the devices, demonstrating a direct interaction between quantum-confined carriers and a defect level.