Carrier heating and spectral hole burning in strained-layer quantum-well laser amplifiers at 1.5 μm

We present the first polarization studies of femtosecond gain dynamics in strained‐layer multiple‐quantum‐well laser amplifiers. We observe a response consistent with spectral hole burning when the diode is biased in the absorbing regime. In the gain regime, we show that the carriers are heated by free‐carrier absorption and that there is a measurable delay (∼200 fs) in the thermalization of the hot‐carrier distribution. Subsequent cooling to the lattice temperature follows with a time constant of ∼1 ps.

[1]  L. F. Tiemeijer,et al.  Dependence of polarization, gain, linewidth enhancement factor, and K factor on the sign of the strain of InGaAs/InP strained‐layer multiquantum well lasers , 1991 .

[2]  Gregory Raybon,et al.  Carrier capture times in 1.5 μm multiple quantum well optical amplifiers , 1992 .

[3]  J. LaCourse,et al.  Anomalously high damping in strained InGaAs-GaAs single quantum well lasers , 1991, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[4]  M. Oron,et al.  Low threshold highly efficient strained quantum well lasers at 1.5 micrometre wavelength , 1990 .

[5]  R. Nagarajan,et al.  Transport limits in high-speed quantum-well lasers: experiment and theory , 1992, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[6]  John E. Bowers,et al.  Effect of strain on the resonant frequency and damping factor in InGaAs/InP multiple quantum well lasers , 1991 .

[7]  U. Koren,et al.  Coupling Between Barrier and Quantum Well Energy States in A Multiple Quantum Well Optical Amplifier , 1992, Optical Amplifiers and Their Applications.

[8]  Gadi Eisenstein,et al.  Femtosecond gain dynamics in InGaAsP optical amplifiers , 1990 .

[9]  P.J.A. Thijs,et al.  High quantum efficiency, high power, modulation doped GaInAs strained-layer quantum well laser diodes emitting at 1.5 mu m , 1989 .

[10]  Joel N. Schulman,et al.  Wave Mechanics Applied to Semiconductor Heterostructures , 1991 .

[11]  U. Koren,et al.  FEMTOSECOND GAIN DYNAMICS AND SATURATION BEHAVIOR IN INGAASP MULTIPLE QUANTUM WELL OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS , 1990 .

[12]  Gain spectra and gain compression of strained-layer multiple quantum well optical amplifiers , 1991 .

[13]  K L Hall,et al.  Heterodyne pump - probe technique for time-domain studies of optical nonlinearities in waveguides. , 1992, Optics letters.