Correlation of light-to heavy-hole valence band splitting with performance of 1.3 μm uncooled tensile-strained AlInGaAs/InP MQW FP lasers

We have found strong correlation between the lh-hh splitting measured by room temperature photoluminescence (PL) and 1.3 μm tensile-strained MQW laser performance. The lh-hh splitting provides an easily-measured, excellent feedback parameter for assessing and optimising the device potential of epitaxial material. In contrast, epitaxial material characterization by DXRD spectra is dependent on simulations and is difficult to interpret due to the large number of unknowns such as barrier and well strain and width values. While DXRD is useful in determining the pseudomorphic nature of epitaxial material, it is not as direct and unambiguous a measure of laser performance as the lh-hh splitting. We present and discuss device performance modeling results and compare lh-hh splitting based strain values with strain estimates from DXRD simulations