Current injection efficiency of InGaAsN quantum-well lasers

The concept of below-threshold and above-threshold current injection efficiency of quantum well (QW) lasers is clarified. The analysis presented here is applied to the current injection efficiency of 1200 nm emitting InGaAs and 1300 nm emitting InGaAsN QW lasers. The role of heavy-hole leakage in the InGaAsN QW lasers is shown to be significant in determining the device temperature sensitivity. The current injection efficiency of QW lasers with large monomolecular recombination processes is shown to be less temperature sensitive. Excellent agreement between theory and experiment is obtained for both the 1200 nm emitting InGaAs QW and the 1300 nm emitting InGaAsN QW lasers. Suppression of thermionic carrier escape processes in the InGaAsN QW results in high performance 1300 nm emitting lasers operating up to high temperature. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.