Introduction

 Principal light sources-LED, LASER

 Double Heterojunction structures-direct optical
modulation
 PN junction
 FB-recombination-optical radiation
 RB-Minority carriers flow
 Absorption and emission of a photon
 Direct an Indirect band gap materials
Semiconductor Types-Direct
Bandgap
Semiconductor Types-Indirect
Bandgap
LED
 High radiance, Fast emission response time, High
quantum efficiency.
 Carrier Confinement-Bandgap difference
 Optical Confinement-Refractive Index difference
 Other parameters-Optical absorption, doping
concentration,Injected carrier density, Active layer
thickness.
Double Heterostucture LED
Surface Emitting LED
Surface Emitters
 Burrus or Front emitters
 Plane-light emission-perpendicular to fiber axis
 Circular well-50m diameter, 2.5 m thick
 Isotropic emission pattern-lambertian
 120Half power beamwidth (HPBW)
 Cos  - projected area- power dimishes
 50percent of peak power when =60 
Edge Emitting LED
Edge emitters
 Light guiding layers- Ref.Index<Ref.Index of Active
region , > Ref.Index of the surrounding material.
 Waveguide channel
 Contact stripes- 50-70m wide, Active region length-
100-150 m
 Parallel plane-No WG effect, Lambertian pattern ,
HPBW=120
 Perpendicular plane-HPBW=25-35
LASER DIODE (FABRY PEROT)
FABRY PEROT RESONATOR
 Cavity sides-Rough cut, Cavity ends-cleaved on crystal
planes
 Pair of partially reflecting mirrors-optical feedback
 Gain  Losses in the cavity=> Optical radiation
 Oscillator resonant frequency  Optical emission
frequency
DFB LASER DIODE
DFB LASER
 Bragg Reflector or Grating
 Distributed feedback corrugations- Periodic variation
of refractive index
 Full optical output from front facet
 Dielectric reflector at the rear facet
 To reduce optical loss
 To reduce threshold current density
 To increase the quantum efficiency
LASER MODES
 Modes of the cavity-Optical radiation-set of EM field
lines-TE & TM
 Longitudinal Modes-Length, Pricipal structure of
frequency spectrum, many in number
 Lateral Modes-Plane of PN junction, Side wall
preparation & width of the cavity, shape of the lateral
profile of beam
 Transverse modes-EM field, Beam profile
(perpendicular to PN junction), Laser radiation
pattern, Threshold current density.
Laser Operation & Lasing Condition
 To determine the lasing condition and resonant frequencies
 Optical wave propagation along the longitudinal direction, z-axis.
The optical field intensity, I ( z, t )  I ( z )e j (t  z )
 Lasing - condition at which light amplification becomes possible
by virtue of population inversion.
 stimulated emission rate into a given EM mode is proportional to
the intensity of the optical radiation in that mode
 Loss and gain of the optical field in the optical path determine the
lasing condition.
 The radiation intensity of a photon at energy varies exponentially
with a distance z amplified by factor g, and attenuated by factor 
according to the following relationship:

I ( z)  I (0) expg (h )   (h )z

 R1 n1 R2

Z=0 n2 Z=L

I (2L)  I (0) R1R2 expg (h )   (h )(2L) [2]

 : Optical confinemen t factor, g : gain coefficien t

2
 n1  n2 
α : effective absorption coefficien t, R   
 n1  n2 
Lasing Conditions:
I ( 2 L )  I ( 0) [3]

exp(  j 2 L)  1 [4]

 Continued

Condition for Threshold:

The condition to just reach the lasing threshold is the point

at which the optical gain is equal to the total loss αt, in the
cavity.
Threshold gain & current density
1  1 
g th   t    ln  
2 L  R1 R2 
[4-23]
g th     end
Where αend is the mirror loss in the lasing cavity. Thus

Laser starts to " lase" iff : g  gth

For laser structure with strong carrier confinement, the threshold current
Density for stimulated emission can be well approximated by:

gth  J th [4-24]

 : constant depends on specific device constructi on

Optical output vs. drive current

Optical Fiber communications, 3rd ed.,G.Keiser,McGrawHill, 2000

Semiconductor laser rate equations
 Rate equations relate the optical output power, or # of photons per unit
volume,  , to the diode drive current or # of injected electrons per unit
volume, n. For active (carrier confinement) region of depth d, the rate
equations are:
d 
 Cn  Rsp 
dt  ph
Photonratestimulated emission spontaneous emission photon loss [4-25]

dn J n
   Cn
dt qd  sp
electron rate  injection  spontaneous recombination  stimulated emission

C : Coefficien t expressing the intensityof the opticalemission & absorptionprocess

Rsp :rate of spontaneous emission into the lasing mode
 ph : photonlife time
J :Injectioncurrent density
Threshold current Density & excess electron density

 At the threshold of lasing:   0, d / dt  0, Rsp  0

1
from eq. [4 - 25]  Cn   /  ph  0  n   nth [4-26]

C ph

 The threshold current needed to maintain a steady state threshold

concentration of the excess electron, is found from electron rate equation
under steady state condition dn/dt=0 when the laser is just about to lase:

J th nth nth
0   J th  qd [4-27]

qd  sp  sp
Laser operation beyond the threshold
J  J th

 The solution of the rate equations [4-25] gives the steady state
photon density, resulting from stimulated emission and
spontaneous emission as follows:

 ph
s  ( J  J th )   ph Rsp [4-28]

qd
External quantum efficiency

 Number of photons emitted per radiative electron-hole pair

recombination above threshold, gives us the external quantum
efficiency.

i ( g th   )
ext 
g th
q dP dP (mW )
  0.8065[ m] [4-29]

E g dI dI (mA )

 Note that: i  60%  70%; ext  15%  40%

Laser Resonant Frequencies
 Lasing condition, namely eq. [4-22]:

exp(  j 2 L)  1  2 L  2m , m  1,2,3,...

2n
 Assuming  the resonant frequency of the mth mode
is: 
mc
m  m  1,2,3,... [4-30]
2 Ln

c 2
   m  m1     [4-31]

2 Ln 2 Ln
Spectrum from a laser Diode

 (  0 ) 
g ( )  g (0) exp    : spectral width [4-32]
 2 
2
LD STRUCTURES and RADIATION
PATTERN
 Efficient operation-Optical confinement, Carrier
confinement, Current confinement
 Current confinement-lateral restriction to a narrow
stripe along the length of cavity
 Limiting the number of lateral modes
 Single filament confined lasing
 Stabilized lateral gain
 Low threshold current
OPTICAL CONFINEMENT
METHODS-Metallic Stripe Contact
OPTICAL CONFINEMENT
METHODS-Index guided (Negative)
OPTICAL CONFINEMENT
METHODS-Index guided (Positive)
Buried Hetero Structure LD
Selectively diffused construction
Varying Thickness Structure
Bent layer Configuration
Current Confinement Methods-
Preferential Dopant diffusion
Current Confinement Methods-
Proton Implantation
Current Confinement Methods-
Inner Stripe Confinement
Current Confinement Methods-
Regrowth of Back biased PN Junction
Single Mode Laser
 mostly based on the index-guided structure
 supports only the fundamental transverse mode and
the fundamental longitudinal mode.
 to make single mode laser :
1- Reducing the length of the cavity to the point where
the frequency separation of the adjacent modes is larger
than the laser transition line width. This is hard to
handle for fabrication and results in low output power.
2- Vertical-Cavity Surface Emitting laser (VCSEL)
3- Structures with built-in frequency selective grating
4- tunable laser diodes
.
Single mode LASER - VCSEL
Built in Frequency Selective
Reflector-DFB
Built in Frequency Selective
Reflector-DBR
 B 2
1
  B  (m  )
2ne Le 2
[4-35]

Output spectrum symmetrically distributed around Bragg wavelength in an idealized DFB laser diode
Built in Frequency Selective
Reflector-DR
Modulation of LASER
 Processing of imposing information on a light stream
 Directly varying LASER current with information
stream to produce varying optical power (or)
 Using external modulator(>2.5Gbps systems)
 Limitations of direct modulation
 Spontaneous and stimulated carrier life times
 Photon life time
Modulation of Laser Diodes
 Internal Modulation: Simple but suffers from non-linear effects.
 External Modulation: for rates greater than 2 Gb/s, more complex,
higher performance.
 Most fundamental limit for the modulation rate is set by the
photon life time in the laser cavity:

1 c 1 1  c
   ln   g th
 ph
[4-36]
n 2L R1 R2  n
 Another fundamental limit on modulation frequency is the
relaxation oscillation frequency given by:
1/ 2
1 1  I 
f    1 [4-37]
2  sp ph  I th 
Relaxation oscillation peak
Pulse Modulated laser
 In a pulse modulated laser, if the laser is completely turned off
after each pulse, after onset of the current pulse, a timet ddelay,
given by:

 Ip 
t d   ln   [4-38]

 I p  ( I B  I th ) 

 : carrier life time I p : Current pulse amplitude

I B : Bias current