Theory and experiment on the amplified spontaneous emission from distributed-feedback lasers

Author

Minch, J. ; Chuang, Shun-Lien ; Chang, Chih-Sheng ; Fang, W. ; Chen, Young-Kai ; Tanbun-Ek, T.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Illinois Univ., Urbana, IL, USA

Volume

33

Issue

5

fYear

1997

fDate

5/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

815

Lastpage

823

Abstract

The amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) of a strained quantum-well distributed feedback (DFB) laser biased below laser threshold is used to extract the gain and refractive index spectra in a systematic manner. A modified Hakki-Paoli method is used to obtain the gain and differential gain spectra. The refractive index change due to carrier injection is obtained from the shift of the Fabry-Perot peaks in the ASE spectrum. The measured ASE spectrum, gain, refractive index change, and linewidth enhancement factor are then compared with our theoretical model for strained quantum-well lasers. Our model takes into account the realistic band structure and uses the material and quantum-well dimensions directly in the calculation of the electronic and optical properties. The theory agrees very well with the experiment

Keywords

band structure; distributed feedback lasers; laser theory; quantum well lasers; refractive index; spectral line breadth; superradiance; 1.55 mum; ASE spectrum; Fabry-Perot peaks; InGaAsP; amplified spontaneous emission; band structure; carrier injection; differential gain spectra; distributed-feedback lasers; electronic properties; gain; laser threshold; linewidth enhancement factor; material dimensions; modified Hakki-Paoli method; optical properties; quantum-well dimensions; refractive index change; refractive index spectra; strained InGaAsP QW laser; strained quantum-well DFB laser; Distributed feedback devices; Fabry-Perot; Gain measurement; Laser feedback; Laser theory; Optical feedback; Optical materials; Quantum well lasers; Refractive index; Spontaneous emission;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.572156

Filename

572156