[OPTICAL REVIEW Vol. 9, No. 6 (2002) 231-233]
Effect of Quantum Well Width Reduction for GaInNAs/GaAs Lasers
Masataka OHTA*, Tomoyuki MIYAMOTO†, Shigeki MAKINO, Yoshihiko IKENAGA and Fumio KOYAMA
Microsystem Research Center, Precision & Intelligence Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology 4259 Nagatsuta, Midori-ku, Yokohama 226-8503, Japan
(Received June 13, 2002; Accepted August 1, 2002)
We investigated the function of the quantum well (QW) width for laser characteristics especially for reduction of the well width. We pointed out that such reduction has almost no influence on the optical gain or the carrier overflow for a large conduction band offset system, such as GaInNAs QWs. A thin QW is advantageous for suppression of the carrier overflow to the higher quantized energy levels which results in good temperature and gain characteristics. Thin GaInNAs QWs is a good candidate for an active layer structure of the lasers utilized in the next optical communication systems.
Key words: quantum well, semiconductor laser, GaInNAs/GaAs, thin quantum well structure, temperature characteristic, optical gain