Impedance independent optical carrier lifetime measurements in semiconductor lasers

We present a novel, simple, and accurate approach to determining the differ ential carrier lifetime in semiconductor lasers. This technique has lower c rosstalk, fewer fitting parameters, and allows the lifetime to be extracted from data collected at lower frequencies than previous methods. These char acteristics make our method very useful, particularly in quantum well laser s where additional high frequency poles/zeros due to capture, escape, and t ransport may affect the extraction of the carrier lifetime. (C) 1998 Americ an Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(98)01412-9].