Electrostatic deformation in band profiles of InP-based strained-layer quantum-well lasers

Abstract

We study the electrostatic deformation in the conduction‐band and valence‐band profiles of 1.3‐μm InP‐based strained‐layer (SL) quantum‐well (QW) lasers in the temperature range of 273–373 K. Electrostatic deformation is analyzed by the self‐consistent numerical solution of the Poisson’s equation, the scalar effective‐mass equation for the conduction band, and the multiband effective‐mass equation for the valence band. It is shown that, in InP‐based QWs, electrostatic band‐profile deformation causes a significant change in effective barrier height for the conduction and valence bands, which has a pronounced influence on the electron and hole distribution throughout the whole QW structure in the temperature range studied. We demonstrate that it is necessary to take into account electrostatic deformation in both band profiles for an analysis of the high‐temperature characteristics of InP‐based SL‐QW lasers.