Properties of a tunneling injection quantum-well laser: Recipe for ´cold´ device with a large modulation bandwidth

A quantum-well laser in which electrons are directly injected into the lasing quantum well by resonant tunneling is proposed and demonstrated. The preliminary GaAs-based devices, grown by molecular beam epitaxy have an 80-AA In/sub 0.1/Ga/sub 0.9/As active single quantum well and AlAs tunneling barriers. I/sub th/ is 15 mA in a single-mode ridge device and the differential gain is approximately 2*10/sup -16/ cm/sup -2/. The principle of operation promises a ´cold´ laser at high injection levels, and therefore Auger recombination and chirp are expected to be suppressed. In addition, tunneling of carriers into the active well as the potential to achieve large modulation bandwidths.<>