Band-structure engineering in strained semiconductor lasers

The influence of both compressive and tensile strain on semiconductor lasers and optical amplifiers is reevaluated in the light of recent experimental and theoretical work. Strain reduces the three-dimensional symmetry of the lattice and helps match the wave functions of the holes to the one-dimensional symmetry of the laser beam. It can also decrease the density of states at the valence band maximum and so reduce the carrier density required to reach threshold. These two effects appear to adequately explain the TE and TM gain in compressive and tensile structures, including polarization-independent amplifiers, the behavior of visible lasers and the improved frequency characteristics of InGaAs/GaAs lasers. In 1.5 μm InGaAsP/InP lasers phonon-assisted Auger recombination appears to remain the dominant current path and can explain why the temperature sensitivity parameter to remains <100 K at room temperature