Temperature and carrier density dependence of Auger recombination in a 3.4 µm InAs/GaSb/AlSb type-II laser device

Abstract

We report on the temperature and carrier density dependence of non-radiative recombination processes in an InAs/GaSb/InAs type-II W-laser emitting at 3.4 μm. The measurements were performed with a sub-picosecond photoluminescence upconversion set-up in a temperature range between 10 K and 300 K and with initial excited carrier densities in the range between 2.96 × 1018 cm−3 and 4.44 × 1019 cm−3. The excellent growth quality of the device is indicated by a Shockley–Read–Hall coefficient of 2.2 × 108 s−1 at 10 K and 1.1 × 108 s−1 at 300 K. The cubic Auger recombination (AR) coefficient decreases in a characteristic manner with increasing initial excited carrier density. From a convergence equation, we obtained a cubic AR coefficient C03 of 1.2 × 10−28 cm6 s−1 for low carrier densities at 200 K. For low temperatures, due to degenerate carrier population of valence and conduction bands, a sublinear increase of the reciprocal lifetime versus carrier density is measured. With rising temperature the sublinear increase becomes linear and at 300 K a quadratic AR coefficient C02 of 1.73 × 10−11 cm3 s−1 was determined.