Multidimensional Electro-Opto-Thermal Modeling of Broad-Band Optical Devices

This paper investigates the self-consistent modeling of broad-band optical devices such as super-luminescent light-emitting diodes (SLEDs) and semiconductor optical amplifiers. A multidimensional electro-opto-thermal approach using many-body gain theory, and temperature-dependent microscopic transport equations is presented. In addition, a Green´s function based model for amplified spontaneous emission is derived from Maxwell´s equations in a consistent way. To illustrate the model´s validity it is implemented into an existing simulation tool and benchmarked with two InP-based edge-emitting SLEDs operating around 1310 nm, featuring nonidentical quantum wells as active region. A comparison between simulated and measured characteristics (both electro-thermal and spectral) proves the applicability of the novel model.