Carrier and heat transport from the contacts through to the active layer within a semiconductor heterostructure play a critical role in determining the useful operatingrange of high power edge- and surface-emitting semiconductor heterostructures.
We have developed a fully 3D simulation of diverse high power devices using the full time-dependent drift diffusion equations coupled to Poisson’s equation. The simulation allows us to investigate different designs for optimizing high brightness diode laser sources including various surface outcoupling geometries.
Contact profiling (pictures on the right) has been proposed as a means of mapping the current flow in the active layer to a preferred optical mode profile. Computed current profiles and thermal profiles in the active layer act as inputs to our interactive supercomputing simulation. We are also investigating coupling the classical carrier transport to a fully nonequilibrium quantum transport within the barrier and QWs of the active structure.
