Theoretical investigation of nitride nanowire-based quantum-shell lasers

Abstract

We executed a feasibility study of a novel laser structure composed of GaN nanowire (NW) and GaInN/GaN multi-quantum-shell (MQS) active layers. We predicted that the novel structure would increase of the optical confinement factor Γ because of its three-dimensional active layers. We analyzed the optical field distribution of the waveguide in the structure by the effective refractive index method, and the optical confinement factor was calculated. When the active layers had five periods of 4 nm-thick well layers and 9 nm-thick barrier layers, the confinement factor was estimated to be 6.5%. This is more than three times higher than that of a conventional planar multi-quantum-well (MQW) structure. The threshold current density estimated from the gain curve was shown to be 44% lower than that of a conventional MQW laser.