Spectral properties of amplified spontaneous emission in semiconductor optical amplifiers

Abstract

We present a theoretical investigation of the spectral properties of spontaneous emission in semiconductor optical amplifiers. We use an extended (3/spl times/3) transfer matrix formalism to derive in the spectral domain an expression for the total longitudinally averaged internal field, which is valid regardless of the levels of optical input and bias current. The material parameters are saturated not only by the monochromatic signal, but also by the amplified spontaneous emission, filtered into the resonance modes of the structure, and integrated over its whole spectral range.