Incorporating many-body effects into modeling of semiconductor lasers and amplifiers

C.Z. Ning^a, R.A. Indik^a, J.V. Moloney^a, W.W. Chow^b, A. Girndt^c, S.W. Koch^c, and R. Binder^d

^a Arizona Center for Mathematical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85712
^b Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87185
^c Fachbereich Physik, Universität Marburg, D-35032 Marburg, Germany
^d Optical Sciences Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85712

Abstract:

Major many-body effects that are important for semiconductor laser modeling are summarized. We adopt a bottom-up approach to incorporate these many-body effects into a model for semiconductor lasers and amplifiers. The optical susceptibility function ( ) computed from the semiconductor Bloch equations (SBEs) is approximated by a single Lorentzian, or a superposition of a few Lorentzians in the frequency domain. Our approach leads to a set of effective Bloch equations (EBEs). We compare this approach with the full microscopic SBEs for the case of pulse propagation. Good agreement between the two is obtained for pulse widths longer than tens of picoseconds.

Keywords: Many-body interactions, simulation and modeling, semiconductor lasers, gain and refractive index dispersions

• INTRODUCTION
• MANY-BODY EFFECTS
  • The semiconductor Bloch equations (SBEs)
  • Bandgap renormalization
  • Coulomb enhancement
  • The line shape of the gain spectrum
• THE CONVENTIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR LASER MODELING
  • Rate equations with linearized gain
  • Rate equations with nonlinear gain
  • Gain and refractive index dispersion
• EFFECTIVE BLOCH EQUATIONS
• COMPARISON BETWEEN EBEs AND SBEs
• SUMMARY
• References
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