“Spiked” GaInP Quantum Wells for Shorter Red Wavelength Emission

Compositional and strain limitations are often restricting the emission wavelength from quantum-well (QW) lasers. The letter presents simulation and experimental results on the effects of including thin higher bandgap layers into GalnP QWs emitting in the short red wavelength range. These were considered "spiked" single QWs since the thin higher bandgap layers used in our studies varied in composition and led to carrier wavefunctions that are like perturbed single QW wavefunctions rather than wavefunctions of coupled QWs. The edge-emitting lasers having up to four-monolayer AlGalnP "spikes" in the QWs had an emission blueshift of up to 25 nm, whereas the degradation of other laser characteristics was in line with the degradation observed when similar emission blueshift was generated by conventional QW modification.