Impact of band gap shrinkage on simulated bifurcation routes in directly modulated semiconductor lasers

Abstract

A carrier heating model is derived by taking into account the various temperature processes in the active layer of laser diodes. This model is then used to simulate the static and dynamic characteristics of a directly modulated 1.55 mu m distributed-feedback laser diode. The calculated results are compared with the measured results of this device as obtained in an earlier work [H. F. Liu and W. F. Ngal, IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 29, 1668 (1993)], and this reveals the significant impact of band gap shrinkage on simulated results. This study also shows that the carrier heating model is a self-consistent model that naturally describes the gain suppression phenomena in directly modulated laser diodes. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.