The Effect of Thickness of Delta-Strained Layers in the Design of Polarization-Insensitive Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

Abstract

We have analyzed the effect of thickness of delta (/spl delta/)-strained layer in the design of polarization insensitive semiconductor optical amplifiers. We considered a system consisting of a single quantum well (QW) with several different locations and varying thicknesses of /spl delta/ layer. For its analysis, we used the self-consistent approach of solving the Poisson, Schro/spl uml/dinger, and 4 /spl times/ 4 Lu/spl uml/ttinger-Kohn equations. The many-body effects of bandgap renormalization, Coulombic scattering interactions, and a non-Markovian distribution were all included in the model. We have found that up to eight monolayers produce very good polarization insensitivity (<1 dB) provided that the /spl delta/ layer is properly positioned inside QW. For a given thickness of /spl delta/ layer, we also provide the location inside QW which gives the best polarization insensitivity.