S. Kamiyama et al., EFFECT OF SPIN-ORBIT SPLIT-OFF BANDS ON GAINP ALGAINP STRAINED-QUANTUM-WELL LASERS/, IEEE photonics technology letters, 6(10), 1994, pp. 1173-1175
We theoretically analyzed the effect of the spin-orbit split-off band
on GaInP/AlGaInP strained quantum well lasers using 6 x 6 Luttinger-Ko
hn Hamiltonian. Because of the small spin splitting energy of GaInP, w
e show that the spin-orbit split-off subbands strongly couple with hea
vy and light hole subbands, and linear gain properties are greatly dif
ferent from those without the effect of spin-orbit split-off bands. Th
e unstrained quantum well structure is most influenced by the spin-orb
it split-off bands, and laser characteristics such as the differential
gain and thresh-old current are degraded. The compressive-strained qu
antum well has the lowest threshold current, and the tensile-strained
quantum well has largest differential gain, which is improved by the e
ffect of the spin-orbit split-off bands.