The influence of growth conditions on carrier recombination mechanisms in 1.3 μm GaAsSb/GaAs quantum well lasers

Abstract

We investigate the temperature and pressure dependence of the threshold current density of edge-emitting GaAsSb/GaAs quantum well (QW) lasers with different device characteristics. Thermally activated carrier leakage via defects is found to be very sensitive to the growth conditions of GaAsSb QWs. An optimization of the growth conditions reduces the nonradiative recombination mechanisms from 93% to 76% at room temperature. This improvement in carrier recombination mechanisms leads to a large improvement in the threshold current density from 533 Acm−2/QW to 138 Acm−2/QW and the characteristic temperature, T0 (T1), from 51 ± 5 K (104 ± 16 K) to 62 ± 2 K (138 ± 7 K) near room temperature.