Determination of the wavelength dependence of Auger recombination in long-wavelength quantum-well semiconductor lasers using hydrostatic pressure

Abstract

The variation of the threshold current of an unstrained 1.48-/spl mu/m InGaAsP quantum-well (QW) laser has been measured as a function of hydrostatic pressure up to 27 kbar. We combine this result with theoretical calculations to extract the bandgap dependence of the Auger coefficient, C, over a range of 200 meV. We find that over this range C reduces by a factor of about three. We have calculated the bandgap dependence of the main Auger processes and conclude that the dominant Auger process over this wavelength range could either be the phonon-assisted CHCC process or the band-to-band CHSH process. Based on this result, we have estimated the threshold current density of strained and unstrained lasers with wavelengths ranging from 1.75 to 1.3 /spl mu/m using both these processes. We get good agreement between theory and experiment in both cases and show that Auger recombination is the dominant current contribution in 1.5- and 1.3-/spl mu/m devices.