Direct modulation of double-heterostructure lasers at rates up to 1 Gbit/s

Mesa-stripe double-heterostructure lasers operating at room temperature with direct-current bias close to threshold have been directly modulated at gigabit rates. The distortion and ringing effects expected at these frequencies as a result of resonant coupling between photon- and electron-density distributions were found to be suppressed over a range of bias levels. This is thought to result from the multimode behaviour of the device.