Molecular beam epitaxial growth of strained AIGalnAs multi-quantum well lasers on InP

Abstract

State of the art transparency currents as low as 41 A/cm² per well have been achieved in strained AIGalnAs multi-quantum well (MQW) 1.5 urn lasers. Grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy, broad area lasers with seven quantum wells exhibit threshold current densities of less than 900 A/cm² for a 300 μm device length, comparable to the best results in this material system by any growth technology. The key to this threshold current density reduction is the optimization of the quantum well width. Experimentally, we found that thresh-old current densities can be reduced by a factor of two by using MQW active regions with wider wells which we attribute to a reduction in the nonradiative recombination and improved electron-hole overlap. High resolution x-ray diffraction, photoluminescence, and broad area lasers were used to characterize the MQW active regions.