Sudden Change of Electrical Characteristics at Lasing Threshold of a Semiconductor Laser

Abstract

Accurate forward electrical characteristics of multiquantum-well (MQW) lasers have been measured using ac admittance measurements together with dc I-V plot. The synchronous step offsets of apparent conductance, apparent capacitance, junction voltage, series resistance, and ideality factor at the onset of lasing were observed for the first time. With this effect, the lasing threshold can be deduced immediately by the LCR Meter. It is also found that the junction voltage jumps abruptly to a saturated value at the onset of lasing, and the starting and end points of jumping exactly correspond to the maximum of the second derivative of lasing power with respect to current and the kink point of the first derivative, respectively. All of the phenomena may help to verify and improve existing semiconductor laser models. In addition, negative capacitance effect in LDs was observed