Search Results
Semiconductor laser linewidth theory revisited
2021, Wenzel, Hans, Kantner, Markus, Radziunas, Mindaugas, Bandelow, Uwe
More and more applications require semiconductor lasers distinguished not only by large modulation bandwidths or high output powers, but also by small spectral linewidths. The theoretical understanding of the root causes limiting the linewidth is therefore of great practical relevance. In this paper, we derive a general expression for the calculation of the spectral linewidth step by step in a self-contained manner. We build on the linewidth theory developed in the 1980s and 1990s but look from a modern perspective, in the sense that we choose as our starting points the time-dependent coupled-wave equations for the forward and backward propagating fields and an expansion of the fields in terms of the stationary longitudinal modes of the open cavity. As a result, we obtain rather general expressions for the longitudinal excess factor of spontaneous emission (K-factor) and the effective α-factor including the effects of nonlinear gain (gain compression) and refractive index (Kerr effect), gain dispersion, and longitudinal spatial hole burning in multi-section cavity structures. The effect of linewidth narrowing due to feedback from an external cavity often described by the so-called chirp reduction factor is also automatically included. We propose a new analytical formula for the dependence of the spontaneous emission on the carrier density avoiding the use of the population inversion factor. The presented theoretical framework is applied to a numerical study of a two-section distributed Bragg reflector laser.
Multi-dimensional modeling and simulation of semiconductor nanophotonic devices
2019, Kantner, Markus, Höhne, Theresa, Koprucki, Thomas, Burger, Sven, Wünsche, Hans-Jürgen, Schmidt, Frank, Mielke, Alexander, Bandelow, Uwe
Self-consistent modeling and multi-dimensional simulation of semiconductor nanophotonic devices is an important tool in the development of future integrated light sources and quantum devices. Simulations can guide important technological decisions by revealing performance bottlenecks in new device concepts, contribute to their understanding and help to theoretically explore their optimization potential. The efficient implementation of multi-dimensional numerical simulations for computer-aided design tasks requires sophisticated numerical methods and modeling techniques. We review recent advances in device-scale modeling of quantum dot based single-photon sources and laser diodes by self-consistently coupling the optical Maxwell equations with semiclassical carrier transport models using semi-classical and fully quantum mechanical descriptions of the optically active region, respectively. For the simulation of realistic devices with complex, multi-dimensional geometries, we have developed a novel hp-adaptive finite element approach for the optical Maxwell equations, using mixed meshes adapted to the multi-scale properties of the photonic structures. For electrically driven devices, we introduced novel discretization and parameter-embedding techniques to solve the drift-diffusion system for strongly degenerate semiconductors at cryogenic temperature. Our methodical advances are demonstrated on various applications, including vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, grating couplers and single-photon sources.
Time-dependent simulation of thermal lensing in high-power broad-area semiconductor lasers
2019, Zeghuzi, Anissa, Wünsche, Hans-Jürgen, Wenzel, Hans, Radziunas, Mindaugas, Fuhrmann, Jürgen, Klehr, Andreas, Bandelow, Uwe, Knigge, Andrea
We propose a physically realistic and yet numerically applicable thermal model to account for short and long term self-heating within broad-area lasers. Although the temperature increase is small under pulsed operation, a waveguide that is formed within a few-ns-long pulse can result in a transition from a gain-guided to an index-guided structure, leading to near and far field narrowing. Under continuous wave operation the longitudinally varying temperature profile is obtained self-consistently. The resulting unfavorable narrowing of the near field can be successfully counteracted by etching trenches.
Dynamics in high-power diode lasers
2020, Bandelow, Uwe, Radziunas, Mindaugas, Zeghuzi, Anissa, Wünsche, Hans-Jürgen, Wenzel, Hans
High-power broad-area diode lasers (BALs) exhibit chaotic spatio-temporal dynamics above threshold. Under high power operation, where they emit tens of watts output, large amounts of heat are generated, with significant impact on the laser operation. We incorporate heating effects into a dynamical electro-optical (EO) model for the optical field and carrier dynamics along the quantum-well active zone of the laser. Thereby we effectively couple the EO and heat-transport (HT) solvers. Thermal lensing is included by a thermally-induced contribution to the index profile. The heat sources obtained with the dynamic EO-solver exhibit strong variations on short time scales, which however have only a marginal impact on the temperature distribution. We consider two limits: First, the static HT-problem, with time-averaged heat sources, which is solved iteratively together with the EO solver. Second, under short pulse operation the thermally induced index distribution can be obtained by neglecting heat flow. Although the temperature increase is small, a waveguide is introduced here within a few-ns-long pulse resulting in significant near field narrowing. We further show that a beam propagating in a waveguide structure utilized for BA lasers does not undergo filamentation due to spatial holeburning. Moreover, our results indicate that in BALs a clear optical mode structure is visible which is neither destroyed by the dynamics nor by longitudinal effects.
Efficient Current Injection Into Single Quantum Dots Through Oxide-Confined p-n-Diodes
2016, Kantner, Markus, Bandelow, Uwe, Koprucki, Thomas, Schulze, Jan-Hindrik, Strittmatter, Andre, Wunsche, Hans-Jurgen
Current injection into single quantum dots embedded in vertical p-n-diodes featuring oxide apertures is analyzed in the low-injection regime suitable for single-photon emitters. The experimental and theoretical evidence is found for a rapid lateral spreading of the carriers after passing the oxide aperture in the conventional p-i-n-design. By an alternative design employing p-doping up to the oxide aperture, the current spreading can be suppressed resulting in an enhanced current confinement and increased injection efficiencies, both, in the continuous wave and under pulsed excitation.
Stabilization of optical pulse transmission by exploiting fiber nonlinearities
2019, Bandelow, Uwe, Amiranashvili, Shalva, Pickartz, Sabrina
We prove theoretically, that the evolution of optical solitons can be dramatically influenced in the course of nonlinear interaction with much smaller group velocity matched pulses. Even weak pump pulses can be used to control the solitons, e.g., to compensate their degradation caused by Raman-scattering.
Traveling wave analysis of non-thermal far-field blooming in high-power broad-area lasers
2019, Zeghuzi, Anissa, Radziunas, Mindaugas, Wünsche, Hans-Jürgen, Koester, Jan-Philipp, Wenzel, Hans, Bandelow, Uwe, Knigge, Andrea
With rising current the lateral far-field angle of high-power broad-area lasers widens (far-field blooming) which can be partly attributed to non-thermal effects due to carrier induced refractive index and gain changes that become the dominant mechanism under pulsed operation. To analyze the non-thermal contribution to far-field blooming we use a traveling wave based model that properly describes the injection of the current into and the diffusion of the carriers within the active region. Although no pre-assumptions regarding the modal composition of the field is made and filamentation is automatically accounted for, the highly dynamic time-dependent optical field distribution can be very well represented by only few modes of the corresponding stationary waveguide equation obtained by a temporal average of the carrier density and field intensity. The reduction of current spreading and spatial holeburning by selecting proper design parameters can substantially improve the beam quality of the laser.
Unusual ways of four-wave mixing instability
2022, Amiranashvili, Shalva, Bandelow, Uwe
A pump carrier wave in a dispersive system may decay by giving birth to blue- and red-shifted satellite waves due to modulation or four-wave mixing instability. We analyse situations where the satellites are so different from the carrier wave, that the red-shifted satellite either changes its propagation direction (k < 0, ω > 0) or even gets a negative frequency (k, ω < 0). Both situations are beyond the envelope approach and require application of Maxwell equations.
Additive splitting methods for parallel solution of evolution problems
2020, Amiranashvili, Shalva, Radziunas, Mindaugas, Bandelow, Uwe, Busch, Kurt, Čiegis, Raimondas
We demonstrate how a multiplicative splitting method of order P can be used to construct an additive splitting method of order P + 3. The weight coefficients of the additive method depend only on P, which must be an odd number. Specifically we discuss a fourth-order additive method, which is yielded by the Lie-Trotter splitting. We provide error estimates, stability analysis, and numerical examples with the special discussion of the parallelization properties and applications to nonlinear optics.
Beam combining scheme for high-power broad-area semiconductor lasers with Lyot-filtered reinjection: Modeling, simulations, and experiments
2019, Brée, Carsten, Raab, Volker, Montiel-Ponsoda, Joan, Garre-Werner, Guillermo, Staliunas, Kestutis, Bandelow, Uwe, Radziunas, Mindaugas
A brightness- and power-scalable polarization beam combining scheme for high-power, broadarea semiconductor laser diodes is investigated numerically and experimentally. To achieve the beam combining, we employ Lyot-filtered optical reinjection from an external cavity, which forces lasing of the individual diodes on interleaved frequency combs with overlapping envelopes and enables a high optical coupling efficiency. Unlike conventional spectral beam combining schemes with diffraction gratings, the optical coupling efficiency is insensitive to thermal drifts of laser wavelengths. This scheme can be used for efficient coupling of a large number of laser diodes and paves the way towards using broad-area laser diode arrays for cost-efficient material processing, which requires high-brilliance emission and optical powers in the kW-regime.