Performance improvement by enhancing the well-barrier hole burning in a quantum well semiconductor optical amplifier

doi:10.1007/s12200-016-0598-z

Front. Optoelectron.

2016, Vol. 9

Issue (3) : 353-361 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12200-016-0598-z

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Performance improvement by enhancing the well-barrier hole burning in a quantum well semiconductor optical amplifier

Tong CAO,Xinliang ZHANG(

)

Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China

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Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrated a novel physical mechanism based on the well-barrier hole burning enhancement in a quantum well (QW) semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) to improve the operation performance. To completely characterize the physical mechanism, a complicated theoretical model by combining QW band structure calculation with SOA’s dynamic model was constructed, in which the carrier transport, interband effects and intraband effects were all taken into account. The simulated results showed optimizing the thickness of the separate confinement heterostructure (SCH) layer can effectively enhance the well-barrier hole burning, further enhance the nonlinear effects in SOA and reduce the carrier recovery time. At the optimal thickness, the SCH layer can store enough carrier numbers, and simultaneously the stored carriers can also be fast and effectively injected into the QWs.

Keywords nonlinear optics optical signal processing semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)

Corresponding Author(s): Xinliang ZHANG

Just Accepted Date: 19 August 2016 Online First Date: 12 September 2016 Issue Date: 28 September 2016

Cite this article:

Tong CAO,Xinliang ZHANG. Performance improvement by enhancing the well-barrier hole burning in a quantum well semiconductor optical amplifier[J]. Front. Optoelectron., 2016, 9(3): 353-361.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/foe/EN/10.1007/s12200-016-0598-z
https://academic.hep.com.cn/foe/EN/Y2016/V9/I3/353

Fig.1 Schematic diagram of a QW SOA with a SCH layer used in SOA model

Tab.1 Main modeling parameters

Fig.2 (a) Conduction band structure; (b) valence band structure. The gallium mole fraction is 0.47 and the well thickness is selected as 8 nm; (c) material gains of TE and TM mode versus the wavelength, the carrier density is 2.2 × 10²⁴ m^-³

Fig.3 Geometric structure of the active region

Fig.4 (a) Transverse field distribution at 45 nm SCH thickness; (b) optical confinement factor versus the SCH thickness

Fig.5 Pump-probe technique to measure the carrier recovery time

Fig.6 Carrier recovery time versus the SCH thickness

Fig.7 (a) Amplitude dynamics of probe signal for different samples; (b) phase dynamics of probe signal for different samples

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