Effect of the Shape of InAs Nanostructures on the Characteristics of InP-Based Buried Heterostructure Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

A comparative study of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) with either InAs/InGaAsP quantum dots (QDs) or quantum dashes (QDashes) in the active region is demonstrated using metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE). The type of the nanostructure, QDs vs QDashes, depends on details of the growth parameters. Stacked layers with a high density of either QDs or QDashes were implemented in SOAs with otherwise identical design. QD and QDash SOAs operating at 1.5 mu m yield broad 10 dB bandwidth of 130 and 100 nm, and a peak gain of 15 and 25 dB, respectively. (C) 2011 The Japan Society of Applied Physics