Many-body effects and self-contained phase dynamics in an optically injected quantum-dot laser

Benjamin Lingnau; Kathy Lüdge; Weng W. Chow; Eckehard Schöll

doi:10.1117/12.921991

15 May 2012 Many-body effects and self-contained phase dynamics in an optically injected quantum-dot laser

Benjamin Lingnau, Kathy Lüdge, Weng W. Chow, Eckehard Schöll

Proceedings Volume 8432, Semiconductor Lasers and Laser Dynamics V; 84321J (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.921991
Event: SPIE Photonics Europe, 2012, Brussels, Belgium

Abstract

Quantum-dot (QD) lasers exhibit unique properties when subjected to optical injection, e.g. lower sensitivity and less complex dynamics when compared to conventional quantum-well (QW) lasers. These features can be explained by a lower phase-amplitude coupling and a higher damping of relaxation oscillations in QD laser devices. In this work, we investigate an optically injected QD laser and clarify the role of many-body effects. We model the QD laser device using a semi-classical approach based on the semiconductor-Bloch and Maxwell's equations. The QD optical transition is modeled with a finite spectral width, accounting for inhomogeneous broadening due to QD imperfections. Furthermore, many-body Coulomb interactions, leading to renormalizations of the single-particle energies, are taken into account assuming the screened Hartree-Fock approximation. Throughout the literature the phase dynamics of the electric field inside the laser cavity is implemented by assuming a constant α-factor. Our model accounts for the effects of α via a more rigorous treatment of light-semiconductor interaction. As a result the model allows to extract a value for the α-factor from the intrinsic phase dynamics of the system. The extracted α-factor is not a constant, but rather changes on the one hand dynamically throughout the simulations, and on the other hand with all operation conditions. Furthermore, the dynamical shift of the band-gap energy due to the Coulomb interactions gives rise to modifications in the locking behavior of the laser, that can not be explained with the simpler free-carrier models.

Citation Download Citation

Benjamin Lingnau, Kathy Lüdge, Weng W. Chow, and Eckehard Schöll "Many-body effects and self-contained phase dynamics in an optically injected quantum-dot laser", Proc. SPIE 8432, Semiconductor Lasers and Laser Dynamics V, 84321J (15 May 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.921991

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