Effects of carrier heating, nonequilibrium LO phonons and lattice heating on small-signal modulation response of semiconductor lasers

A small-signal analysis is presented for the modulation response of semiconductor lasers by simultaneously incorporating the effects of carrier heating, nonequilibrium LO phonons and lattice heating. The authors theoretically investigate, without the definition of steady-state carrier energy relaxation time, the effects of the lifetime of LO phonons and the thermal time of acoustic phonons on the small-signal modulation response of semiconductor lasers. They show that if the LO phonon lifetime approaches the inverse of modulation frequency the assumption about the quasistatic population variation of LO phonons may lose its validity in discussing the modulation response of semiconductor lasers