Quantum Dot Laser Seminar Report 2004

Quantum Dot Laser Seminar Report 2004
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
LASER 2
• PRICIPLE OF OPERATION 3
• LASER DIODE 4
 PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION 5
 TYPES OF LASER DIODE 6
SEMICONDUCTOR LASER 7
QUANTUM WELL LASER 7
QUANTUM DOT LASER 8
 QUANTUM DOT 9
 GROWTH TECHNIQUES 12
 CHALLENGES 13
 SPECTRAL ANALYSIS OF QUANTUM DOT 14
LASERS
 HIGH TEMPERATURE PROPERTIES 21
CONCLUSION 24
Dept of Electronics & Communication GEC Thrissur

INTRODUCTION
Since the invention of semiconductor lasers in 1962, significant

progress has been made in terms of high performance in many applications
including telecommunications, optical storage, and instrumentation. Most
modern semiconductor lasers operate based on quantum mechanical effects.
Quantum well lasers have been used with impressive performance, while
novel quantum dot lasers, a subject of intense research, show a great
promise
Lasers come in many sizes and can be made from a variety of

resonant cavities and active laser materials. Generally, increasing
confinement enforces an increasing quantization in the energy of electrons.
Therefore quantum dots, essentially zero-dimensional bits of material, will
(once excited) re-emit light at nearly a single wavelength. Quantum dots are
therefore a good starting point for producing laser light Some existing
quantum dot lasers employ dots made epitaxially: the atoms in the dots are
laid down meticulously using beams of atoms or molecules In the MIT laser
the gain medium consists of nm-sized particles of CdSe coated with a layer
of organic molecules and then immersed in a glassy film. The medium sits
in a waveguide atop a grating.
The fabrication advantage in this case derives from the fact that one
uses simple solution processing rather than the more exacting technique of
epitaxy usually needed for semiconductors. Furthermore, the color of the
output laser light can be varied by changing the size of the CdSe particles,
the grating spacing, or the refractive index of the waveguide, giving great
flexibility to the design and application of the laser
Dept of Electronics & Communication 2 GEC Thrissur

LASER
A Laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is a

device which uses a quantum mechanical effect, stimulated emission, to
generate a coherent beam of light. Light from a laser is often very collimated
and monochromatic, but this is not true of all laser types.
Common light sources, such as the electric light bulb, emit photons in
all directions, usually over a wide spectrum of wavelengths. Most light
sources are also incoherent; i.e., there is no fixed phase relationship between
the photons emitted by the light source.
By contrast, a laser generally emits photons in a narrow, well-defined

beam of light. The light is often near-monochromatic, consisting of a single
wavelength or color, is highly coherent and is often polarised. Some types of
laser, such as dye lasers and vibronic solid-state lasers can produce light
over a broad range of wavelengths; this property makes them suitable for the
generation of extremely short pulses of light, on the order of a femtosecond
(10-15 seconds).
Laser light can be highly intense — able to cut steel and other metals.
The beam emitted by a laser often has a very small divergence (highly
collimated). A perfectly collimated beam cannot be created, due to the effect
of diffraction, but a laser beam will spread much less than a beam of light
generated by other means. A beam generated by a small laboratory laser
such as a helium-neon (HeNe) laser spreads to approximately 1 mile (1.6
kilometres) in diameter if shone from the Earth's surface to the Moon. Some

lasers, especially semiconductor lasers due to their small size, produce very
divergent beams. However, such a divergent beam can be transformed into a
collimated beam by means of a lens. In contrast, the light from non-laser
light sources can generally not be collimated.
A laser medium can also function as an optical amplifier when seeded

with light from another source. The amplified signal can be very similar to
the input signal in terms wavelength, phase and polarisation; this is
particularly important in optical communications.
The output of a laser may be a continuous, constant-amplitude output

(known as c.w. or continuous wave), or pulsed, by using the techniques of
Q-switching, modelocking or Gain-switching. In pulsed operation, much
higher peak powers can be achieved.
Principle Of Operation
The basic physics of lasers centres around the idea of producing a

population inversion in a laser medium by 'pumping' the medium; i.e., by
supplying energy in the form of light or electricity, for example. The
medium may then amplify light by the process of stimulated emission. If the
light is circulating through the medium by means of a cavity resonator, and
the gain (amplification) in the medium is stronger than the resonator losses,
the power of the circulating light can rise exponentially. Eventually it will
get so strong that the gain is saturated (reduced). In continuous operation,
the intracavity laser power finds an equilibrium value which is saturating the
gain exactly to the level of the cavity losses. If the pump power is chosen

too small (below the 'laser threshold'), the gain is not sufficient to overcome
the resonator losses, and the laser will emit only very small light powers.
A great deal of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics theory can

be applied to laser action (see laser science), though in fact many laser types
were discovered by trial and error.
Population inversion is also the concept behind the maser, which is

similar in principle to a laser but works with microwaves. The first maser
was built by Charles H. Townes in 1953. Townes later worked with Arthur
L. Schawlow to describe the theory of the laser, or optical maser as it was
then known. The word laser was coined in 1957 by Gordon Gould, who was
also credited with lucrative patent rights in the 1970s, following a protracted
legal battle
Even low-power lasers with only a few milliwatts of output power can
be hazardous to a person's eyesight. The coherence and low divergence of
laser light means that it can be focused by the eye into an extremely small
spot on the retina, resulting in localised burning and permanent damage in
seconds. Lasers are classified by wavelength and maximum output power
into safety classes numbered I (inherently safe) to IV (even scattered light
can cause eye and/or skin damage). Laser products available for consumers,
such as CD players and laser pointers are usually in class I or II
LASER DIODE

A laser diode is a laser where the active medium is a semiconductor

p-n junction similar to that found in a light-emitting diode. Laser diodes are
sometimes referred to (somewhat redundantly) as injection laser diodes or
by the acronyms LD or ILD.
Principle of operation
When a diode is forward biased, holes from the p-region are injected
into the n-region, and electrons from the n-region are injected into the p-
region. If electrons and holes are present in the same region, they may
radiatively recombine—that is, the electron "falls into" the hole and emits a
photon with the energy of the bandgap. This is called spontaneous emission,
and is the main source of light in a light-emitting diode.
Under suitable conditions, the electron and the hole may coexist in the
same area for quite some time (on the order of microseconds) before they
recombine. If a photon of exactly the right frequency happens along within
this time period, recombination may be stimulated by the photon. This
causes another photon of the same frequency to be emitted, with exactly the
same direction, polarization and phase as the first photon.
In a laser diode, the semiconductor crystal is fashioned into a shape

somewhat like a piece of paper—very thin in one direction and rectangular
in the other two. The top of the crystal is n-doped, and the bottom is p-
doped, resulting in a large, flat p-n junction. The two ends of the crystal are
cleaved so as to form perfectly smooth, parallel edges; two reflective
parallel edges are called a Fabry-Perot cavity. Photons emitted in precisely

the right direction will be reflected several times from each end face before
they are emitted. Each time they pass through the cavity, the light is
amplified by stimulated emission. Hence, if there is more amplification than
loss, the diode begins to "lase".
Types of laser diode
The type of laser diode just described is called a homojunction laser diode,
for reasons which should soon become clear. Unfortunately, they are
extremely inefficient. They require so much power that they can only be
operated in short "pulses;" otherwise the semiconductor would melt.
Although historically important and easy to explain, such devices are not
practical.
Double heterostructure lasers
In these devices, a layer of low bandgap material is sandwiched between

two high bandgap layers. One commonly-used pair of materials is GaAs
with AlGaAs. Each of the junctions between different bandgap materials is
called a heterostructure, hence the name "double heterostructure laser" or
DH laser. The kind of laser diode described in the first part of the article is
referred to as a "homojunction" laser, for contrast with these more popular
devices.
The advantage of a DH laser is that the region where free electrons and
holes exist simultaneously—the "active" region—is confined to the thin

middle layer. This means that many more of the electron-hole pairs can
contribute to amplification—not so many are left out in the poorly
amplifying periphery. In addition, light is reflected from the heterojunction;
hence, the light is confined to the region where the amplification takes place.
SEMICONDUCTOR LASER
Semiconductor lasers are key components in a host of widely used

technological products, including compact disk players and laser printers,
and they will play critical roles in optical communication schemes. The
basis of laser operation depends on the creation of nonequilibrium
populations of electrons and holes, and coupling of electrons and holes to an
optical field, which will stimulate radiative emission. Calculations carried
out in the early 1970s by C. Henry (Dingle and Henry 1976) predicted the
advantages of using quantum wells as the active layer in such lasers: the
carrier confinement and nature of the electronic density of states should
result in more efficient devices operating at lower threshold currents than
lasers with "bulk" active layers.
QUANTUM WELL LASER
In addition, the use of a quantum well, with discrete transition energy

levels dependent on the quantum well dimensions (thickness), provides a
means of "tuning" the resulting wavelength of the material. The critical
feature size-in this case, the thickness of the quantum well-depends on the
desired spacing between energy levels. For energy levels of greater than a
few tens of millielectron volts (meV, to be compared with room temperature

thermal energy of 25 meV), the critical dimension is approximately a few

hundred angstroms. Although the first quantum well laser, demonstrated in
1975, was many times less efficient than a conventional laser (van der Ziel
et al. 1975), the situation was reversed by 1981 through the use of new
materials growth capabilities (molecular beam epitaxy), and optimization of
the heterostructure laser design (Tsang 1982).
If the middle layer is made thin enough, it starts acting like a quantum
well. This means that in the vertical direction, electron energy is quantised.
The difference between quantum well energy levels can be used for the laser
action instead of the bandgap. This is very useful since the wavelength of
light emitted can be tuned simply by altering the thickness of the layer. The
efficiency of a quantum well laser is greater than that of a bulk laser due to a
tailoring of the distrubution of electrons and holes that are involved in the
stimulated emission (light producing) process.
The problem with these devices is that the thin layer is simply too
small to effectively confine the light. To compensate, another two layers are
added on, outside the first three. These layers have a lower refractive index
than the centre layers, and hence confine the light effectively. Such a design
is called a separate confinement heterostructure (SCH) laser diode.
QUANTUM DOT LASER

Even greater benefits have been predicted for lasers with quantum dot
active layers. Arakawa and Sakaki (1982) predicted in the early 1980s that
quantum dot lasers should exhibit performance that is less temperature-
dependent than existing semiconductor lasers, and that will in particular not
degrade at elevated temperatures. Other benefits of quantum dot active
layers include further reduction in threshold currents and an increase in
differential gain-that is, more efficient laser operation (Asada et al. 1986).
Quantum dots.
A quantum dot is a potential well that confines electrons in three

dimensions to a region of the order of the electrons' de Broglie wavelength
in size, a few nanometers in a semiconductor. Compare to quantum wires
and quantum wells.
Because of the confinement, electrons in the quantum dot have

quantized, discrete energy levels, much like an atom. For this reason,
quantum dots are sometimes called "artificial atoms." The energy levels can
be controlled by changing the size and shape of the quantum dot, and the
depth of the potential.
A potential well is the region surrounding a local energy minimum.If

potential energy is imagined as corresponding to the height of the Earth's
surface on a map, so that the resulting landscape of hills and valleys is a
potential energy surface, then a potential well would be the region around a
minimum of potential that could be filled with water without any flowing
away toward another minimum

Quantum dots are so small that quantum mechanical effects come into
play in controlling their behavior. Quantum mechanics apply in the
microscopic realm but its effects are largely unseen and unfelt in our
macroscopic world
Stimulated recombination of electron-hole pairs takes place in the

GaAs quantum well region, where the confinement of carriers and of the
optical mode enhance the interaction between carriers and radiation In
particular, note the change in the electronic density of states, as a function of
the "dimensionality" of the active layerThe population inversion (creation of
electrons and holes) necessary for lasing occurs more efficiently as the
active layer material is scaled down from bulk (3-dimensional) to quantum
dots (0-dimensional). However, the advantages in operation depend not only
on the absolute size of the nanostructures in the active region, but also on
the uniformity of size. A broad distribution of sizes "smears" the density of
states, producing behavior similar to that of bulk material
With the demonstration of the high optical efficiency self-assembled

formation of quantum dots formed without need of external processing and
having the natural overgrowth of cladding material (which addressed issues
of surface recombination), there ensued a marked increase in quantum dot
laser research.
The first demonstration of a quantum dot laser with high threshold

density was reported by Ledentsov and colleagues in 1994. Bimberg et al.
(1996) achieved improved operation by increasing the density of the
quantum dot structures, stacking successive, strain-aligned rows of quantum
dots and therefore achieving vertical as well as lateral coupling of the

quantum dots. In addition to utilizing their quantum size effects in edge-

emitting lasers, self-assembled quantum dots have also been incorporated
within vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers. Table 5.4 gives a partial
summary of the work and achievements in quantum dot lasers.
As with the demonstration of the advantages of the quantum well

laser that preceded it, the full promise of the quantum dot laser must await
advances in the understanding of the materials growth and optimization of
the laser structure. Although the self-assembled dots have provided an
enormous stimulus to work in this field, there remain a number of critical
issues involving their growth and formation: greater uniformity of size,
controllable achievement of higher quantum dot density, and closer dot-to-
dot interaction range will further improve laser performance.
Better understanding of carrier confinement dynamics and capture

times, and better evaluation of loss mechanisms, will further improve device
characteristics. It should be noted that the spatial localization of carriers
brought about by the quantum dot confinement may play a role in the
"anomalous" optical efficiency of the GaN-based materials, which is
exceptional in light of the high concentration of threading dislocations (~
108 - 1010 cm-2) that currently plague this material system. The localization
imposed by the perhaps natural nanostructure of the GaN materials may
make the dislocation largely irrelevant to the purely optical (but not to the
electrical) behavior of the material.
Quantum dot lasers work like other semiconductor lasers, such as

those found in home-audio compact disc players. Just as in the
semiconductor laser chip in a CD player, the goal of a quantum dot laser is

to manipulate the material into a high energy state and then properly convert
it to a low energy state. The result is the net release of energy, which
emerges as a photon.
. In quantum dots, the electrons are confined within a very small

volume that forces them to strongly interact with each other. These strong
interactions can lead to deactivation of the dot through the so-called "Auger
process," preventing it from emitting a photon.
Quantum dots offer this performance over a range of temperatures,

making them suitable for a variety of applications, and also can be "tuned"
to emit at different wavelengths, or colors. The emission wavelength of a
quantum dot is a function of its size, so by making dots of different sizes
scientists can create light of different colors
GROWTH TECHNIQUES
Several growth approached have been developed to fabricate

Quantum Dots arrays with high luminescence efficiency and low dislocation
density using Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) and Metal Organic Chemical
Vapor Deposition (MOCVD). The parameters of such QDs arrays (QD
density, size and shape) can be controlled by growth conditions. The
emission range of InAs-GaAs nanostructures is extended up to 1.75 m at
room temperature
Parameters of some QD lasers.
Wavelength Output Growth approach Growth

power, technique

300K
1.3 m m 2.7 W Activated Alloy Phase MBE

Separation
1.1 m m 3.7 W Stacking of QDs MOCVD
0.94 m m 4W Submonolayer deposition MBE
QD Lasers grown by MBE

Energy diagram of the layers
in a QD “dots-in-a-well” laser.
CHALLENGES

Thus, the challenge in realizing quantum dot lasers with operation

superior to that shown by quantum well lasers is that of forming high
quality, uniform quantum dots in the active layer. Initially, the most widely
followed approach to forming quantum dots was through electron beam
lithography of suitably small featured patterns (~300 Å) and subsequent dry-
etch transfer of dots into the substrate material. The problem that plagued
these quantum dot arrays was their exceedingly low optical efficiency: high
surface-to-volume ratios of these nanostructures and associated high surface
recombination rates, together with damage introduced during the fabrication
itself, precluded the successful formation of a quantum dot laser.
The challenge, however, is that there are competing mechanisms by

which the energy can be released, such as vibrational energy or electron
kinetic energy
SPECTRAL ANALYSIS OF QUANTUM DOT LASERS
Since the early eighties, predictions have indicated that quantum-dot

lasers should have superior characteristics to other higher dimensional
structures such as quantum well devices and, with the advent of the self-
organized growth technique, progress towards this goal has been made—at
the present time, the best results being for lasers incorporating InGaAs or
InAs dots.
One unexpected feature of InGaAs/GaAs quantum-dot lasers is the
nature of the longitudinal mode distribution. It has been observed that the
laser emission spectra are broad and consist of peaks at regularly spaced
intervals (approx 1–5 nm) superimposed on the normal longitudinal Fabry–

Perot modes. Such behavior has been attributed to the discrete nature of the
dots and the resulting inhomogeneous broadening (lack of a global Fermi
function) leading to either spatial or spectral hole burning.
Further hypotheses have been advanced to account for the periodic
nature of the spectra where different subsets of dot sizes contribute to
different groups of modes, the groups of longitudinal modes do not
necessarily have a regular spacing . The suggested mechanisms include
intracavity photon scattering a nonuniform distribution of dot electronic
states (due perhaps to some preferred dot sizes), a gain that is dot size or
shape dependent (due to size and shape dependence of either the oscillator
strength or the efficiency with which dots capture carriers) and a modulation
of the losses by constructive interference with the reflection of a transverse
leaky mode propagating in the transparent substrate. The effects due to the
leaky mode have previously been reported in quantum well lasers operating
at the same wavelength. They lead to an optical mode loss and an optical
confinement factor that vary as a function of wavelength with a period that
is inversely proportional to the device thickness.
The laser structure we have examined is represented in Fig. 1 and
consists of three layers of InGaAs quantum dots each of which is grown in a
matrix of GaAs (10 nm thick). These are themselves grown in Al0.3Ga0.7As,
and together comprise the waveguide core of the device. Atomic force
microscopy (AFM) studies indicate the dots are lens like in shape, are 2.2
nm high and 36 nm in diameter with a dot density of 4.5x1010 cm -2.

FIG. 3. Spectra of the device of Fig. 2 taken at 1.4 and 1.53Ith and at a temperature of
280 K. The larger wavelength range shows the presence of a second group of lasing
modes at higher energies. The two spectra are offset on the vertical scale.
Typical spectra for 50 mm wide oxide isolated stripe devices

fabricated from the above structure are presented in Fig. 2 (a)The spectra
were measured, using a spectrum analyzer(0.07 nm resolution), as a function
of drive current (I=1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4x Ith ) at a temperature of 280 K. The
devices being operated pulsed with a pulse length of 300 ns and a duty cycle
of 0.03%. In addition to the normal longitudinal modes (spacing ~0.09 nm
for the device that is 1500 mm long), which we can just resolve with the
spectrum analyzer and just pick out in the spectrum shown magnified in the
inset, there is a more widely spaced periodicity present in the data. The
groups of longitudinal modes or supermodes are much more obvious than
the longitudinal modes themselves and have a spacing of approximately 0.6
nm.

The Fourier transform of each of the four spectra (plotted in terms of

wave number so that the conjugate variable is length) are shown in Fig. 2(b)
and demonstrate the presence of a periodicity in all four spectra even at the
relatively low drive currents used here. At still higher currents, lasing
spreads to a second group of higher lying energy states as shown in Fig. 3
for spectra recorded at currents of 1.4 and 1.5x3Ith. This second group of
modes complicates the Fourier transform, introducing extra detail, but the
Fourier transforms of each of the two groups taken individually indicate a
similar periodicity within each group.
FIG. 2.a Quantum-dot laser spectra taken at drive currents of 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.43Ith
and a temperature of 280 K for a 50 mm wide, 1500 mm long oxide isolated stripe
device. The spectra have been offset on the vertical scale for ease of comparison ~higher
current have larger offsets!. The spectra exhibit groups of longitudinal modes separated
by approximately 1nm intervals in addition to the normal longitudinal modes shown in
the magnified section of the 1.33Ith spectrum in the inset.

Fig 2.b. Fourier transforms of the data in (a) plotted in terms of wave number. The
spectra are offset on the vertical scale for clarity (increasing offsets for higher currents).

The spectra of the three sets of quantum-dot lasers with different

substrate thickness were measured as a function of drive current and
temperature. Fourier transforms were used to simplify the analysis of the
spectra. As recently shown by plotting the spectra in terms of wave number,
the Fourier transform gives information about the optical path length within
the laser cavity. Furthermore, by using the refractive index and refractive
index energy dependence this information can be converted into the device
length. The length dependence of any other periodicity within the spectrum
also then becomes apparent. In Fig. 4, we have plotted the Fourier transform
of the wave-number spectrum of a 1500 mm long, 260 mm thick device
operated at 23Ith and at a temperature of 150 K.
The low temperature allows us to drive the device well above
threshold without exciting the higher energy states observed in Fig. 3. In the
upper trace, which is the lower trace amplified by a factor of 20, a feature
exists at both the device length (B1) and twice the device length (B2). The
largest feature (A1), which is readily apparent in the trace that has not been
amplified, corresponds to a length of250 mm, with another feature (A2),
apparent in the amplified trace, at 500 mm. Similar measurements taken on
the other devices of different thickness and cavity length are summarized in
Table I. The features apparent in the Fourier transform spectra, which
represent the periodicity present in the measured spectra, show a correlation
with the thickness
These results indicate that the dominant mechanism leading to the
regular modulation of the emission spectra in these quantum-dot lasers is
related to the device thickness, although there are some additional features
present in some of the measured spectra that do not appear to be related to
the cavity length or thickness. It may be that in quantum-dot devices where

substrate effects are suppressed that other mechanisms cause regular or

quasiregular mode distributions.
.

FIG. 3. Spectra of the device of Fig. 2 taken at 1.4 and 1.53Ith and at a temperature of
280 K. The larger wavelength range shows the presence of a second group of lasing
modes at higher energies. The two spectra are offset on the vertical scale.
HIGH TEMPERATURE PROPERTIES
The growth of selforganized InAs quantum dots allows the realization

of lasers emitting at 1,3 µm on GaAs substrates. Beside the principal
advantage that GaAs substrates can be used instead of InP substrates for
large volume production quantum dot related effects like very low
transparency current densities and low internal absorption are also of
importance. Other predictions of quantum dot lasers like low temperature
dependence could not be realized up to now for room temperature and
above. Especially in the case of 1.3 µm emitting quantum dot lasers good
high temperature performance is still a problem.
We have realized 1,3 µm emitting graded index separate confinement
heterostructure lasers with InAs dots embedded in a 10 nm thick
Ga0.85In0.15As quantum well. Our structure additionally uses short period
superlattices (SSLs) in the graded regions to improve the carrier
confinement by electron back reflection [1, 2]. This improvement allow
ground state lasing at temperatures > 80 °C. Multi quantum dot structures

with large dot layer separation of 50 nm were used to avoid any strain
coupling and to minimize strain accumulation. The growth temperature for
the quantum dot layers was 510 °C and for the 1.6 µm thick cladding layers
570 °C, respectively.
The influence of the amount of quantum dots on the laser
performance was investigated by varying the number of dot layers from 3 to
8 layers. The best results were obtained with 6 uncoupled quantum dot
layers with transparency current densities of less than 40 A/cm2 ( Fig. 1), an
internal quantum efficiency of about 35% and an internal absorption of 1-2
cm-1. Ridge waveguide lasers with 4 µm ridge width and cavity lengths as
short as 800 µm long can be operated at room temperature in cw mode
without any facet coatings. These devices show good temperature
characteristics with T0 > 70 K up to about 50 °C and 54 K up to 140 °C,
respectively ( Fig. 2). The maximum operation temperature was above 150
°C which is the highest value known up to now for 1.3 µm emitting
quantum dot lasers.

Fig. 1: Threshold current density of 2 samples with different numbers of quantum dot
layers as function of the inverse cavity length. Values determined in pulsed operation for
100 µm wide broad area lasers at 20 °C.
Due to the improved gain by 6 dot layers with an average dot density
per layer of about 1x1011 cm-2 and the low internal absorption high
performance short cavity devices could be realized using high reflection
facet coatings (83% for front and 95% for backside facets, respectively). 400
µm long devices exhibit threshold currents as low as 6 mA and more than 5
mW output power at 30 mA Emission from the fundamental dot states was
achieved from cw operating unmounted devices up to 70 °C with more than
2 mW output power. The maximum cw operation temperature was 90 °C

Fig. 2: Temperature dependence of the threshold current density of a 2.5 mm long

uncoated ridge waveguide laser with 6 quantum dot layers.
CONCLUSION

Though QD lasers show immense potential for superior device

performances, there are still some significant problems associated with the
control of emission wavelengths reproducibilty of the dots,high temperature
reliability and long term stablity of the dots.The current challenge is to
match and surpass the performance of the quantum well lasers.There is still
need for the development of QD strength of lasing around 1.55
micrometre ,which is a principal wavelength in fibre optic
communications.This would give QD lasers a chance to move into
application such as ultrafast optical data transfer .A key aspect of QD
production challenge will be to improve our control over the dot distribution
produced in the self assembly process .Reliable continuous wave room
temperature operation of QD lasers has already been reported; structure
improvements are required to get the operation characteristics more
desirable,especially the elimination of several mechanisms that have a
detrimental effect at room temperature.
From a bird’s eyeview ,the research on QD lasers is still newly
emerging from its beginning stages .Several promient group of researchers
around the world are all going down their own avenues ,grappling with a
portion of the overall problem ,identifying and overcoming obstacles one by
one individually .This is not surprising ,considering the research on QD
lasers , as opposed to somewhat more well established research on basic
QD’s themselves began to hit the stage truly only around 1995-1996.Still
consideing the efforts and the emergence of well defined directions ,there
seems to be hope that the field will settle down and become established .If
the collective effort succeeds in bettering the performance of quantum well
lasers ,which it might ,then QD lasers can finally be up there along with the
MOSFET,quantum well lasers and monolithic integration technology.

REFERENCES
 Long wavelength quantum dot lasers in Journal of
materials science: Materials in electronics January 2002
 1.3 micro metre QD lasers with improved high temperature
properties by F.Klopfs and R.Krebs
 Spectral analysis of InGaAs/GaAs quantum dot lasers by
 P.M.Smowton in Journal of Applied physics letters
Volume 75,October 1999
 www.wikipedia.org


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Quantum Dot Laser Seminar Report 2004

QUANTUM WELL LASER 7

QUANTUM DOT LASER 8

 HIGH TEMPERATURE PROPERTIES 21

Dept of Electronics & Communication GEC Thrissur

Since the invention of semiconductor lasers in 1962, significant

Lasers come in many sizes and can be made from a variety of

Dept of Electronics & Communication 2 GEC Thrissur

A Laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is a

By contrast, a laser generally emits photons in a narrow, well-defined

Dept of Electronics & Communication 3 GEC Thrissur

A laser medium can also function as an optical amplifier when seeded

The output of a laser may be a continuous, constant-amplitude output

The basic physics of lasers centres around the idea of producing a

Dept of Electronics & Communication 4 GEC Thrissur

A great deal of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics theory can

Population inversion is also the concept behind the maser, which is

Dept of Electronics & Communication 5 GEC Thrissur

A laser diode is a laser where the active medium is a semiconductor

In a laser diode, the semiconductor crystal is fashioned into a shape

Dept of Electronics & Communication 6 GEC Thrissur

Types of laser diode

Double heterostructure lasers

In these devices, a layer of low bandgap material is sandwiched between

Dept of Electronics & Communication 7 GEC Thrissur

Semiconductor lasers are key components in a host of widely used

QUANTUM WELL LASER

In addition, the use of a quantum well, with discrete transition energy

Dept of Electronics & Communication 8 GEC Thrissur

thermal energy of 25 meV), the critical dimension is approximately a few

QUANTUM DOT LASER

Dept of Electronics & Communication 9 GEC Thrissur

A quantum dot is a potential well that confines electrons in three

Because of the confinement, electrons in the quantum dot have

A potential well is the region surrounding a local energy minimum.If

Dept of Electronics & Communication 10 GEC Thrissur

Stimulated recombination of electron-hole pairs takes place in the

With the demonstration of the high optical efficiency self-assembled

The first demonstration of a quantum dot laser with high threshold

Dept of Electronics & Communication 11 GEC Thrissur

quantum dots. In addition to utilizing their quantum size effects in edge-

As with the demonstration of the advantages of the quantum well

Better understanding of carrier confinement dynamics and capture

Quantum dot lasers work like other semiconductor lasers, such as

Dept of Electronics & Communication 12 GEC Thrissur

. In quantum dots, the electrons are confined within a very small

Quantum dots offer this performance over a range of temperatures,

Several growth approached have been developed to fabricate

Parameters of some QD lasers.

Wavelength Output Growth approach Growth

Dept of Electronics & Communication 13 GEC Thrissur

1.3 m m 2.7 W Activated Alloy Phase MBE

1.1 m m 3.7 W Stacking of QDs MOCVD

0.94 m m 4W Submonolayer deposition MBE

QD Lasers grown by MBE

Dept of Electronics & Communication 14 GEC Thrissur

Thus, the challenge in realizing quantum dot lasers with operation

The challenge, however, is that there are competing mechanisms by

SPECTRAL ANALYSIS OF QUANTUM DOT LASERS

Since the early eighties, predictions have indicated that quantum-dot

Dept of Electronics & Communication 15 GEC Thrissur

Dept of Electronics & Communication 16 GEC Thrissur