Characterisation of modulation doped quantum dot lasers

Peter M. Smowton; Ian C. Sandall; Craig L. Walker; John D. Thomson; Angela Sobiesierski; Tom Badcock; David J. Mowbray; Hui-Yun Liu; Mark Hopkinson

doi:10.1117/12.650682

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22 February 2006 Characterisation of modulation doped quantum dot lasers

Peter M. Smowton; Ian C. Sandall; Craig L. Walker; John D. Thomson; Angela Sobiesierski; Tom Badcock; David J. Mowbray; Hui-Yun Liu; Mark Hopkinson

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 6133, Novel In-Plane Semiconductor Lasers V; 61330T (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.650682
Event: Integrated Optoelectronic Devices 2006, 2006, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

Self-assembled In(Ga)As quantum dot (QD) lasers incorporating p-type modulation doping have generated much interest recently due to reports of a temperature insensitive threshold current and increased modulation bandwidth. The mechanism by which p-type doping improves the performance of QD lasers is thought to be similar to that envisaged for quantum well lasers, where increased gain is expected for a given quasi-Fermi level separation due to a shift in both quasi-Fermi levels towards the valence states. However, the benefits may be much more pronounced in quantum dot structures since the population of the smaller number of dot states can be dramatically affected using relatively low doping levels, which may incur less penalty with regard to increased non-radiative recombination and internal optical mode loss. We present results of direct measurements of the modal gain measured as a function of the quasi-Fermi level separation for samples with different degrees of doping, which demonstrate unambiguously the increased gain that can be obtained at a fixed quasi-Fermi level separation. In addition, we have measured the internal optical mode loss and radiative and non-radiative recombination currents for samples containing 0, 15 and 50 dopant atoms per dot and show that, although the internal optical mode loss is similar for all three samples, the non-radiative recombination current increases for samples containing p-doping. We show that our experimental results are consistent with a simple computer simulation of the operation of our structures.

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Peter M. Smowton, Ian C. Sandall, Craig L. Walker, John D. Thomson, Angela Sobiesierski, Tom Badcock, David J. Mowbray, Hui-Yun Liu, and Mark Hopkinson "Characterisation of modulation doped quantum dot lasers", Proc. SPIE 6133, Novel In-Plane Semiconductor Lasers V, 61330T (22 February 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.650682

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