We performed systematic studies of the optical gain and its saturation in (
In,Ga)N/GaN/(Al,Ga)N laser structures in dependence on photon energy, excit
ation density and number of quantum wells. The optical gain and its saturat
ion were obtained by means of the variable stripe-length method under quasi
-stationary conditions. The unsaturated gain factor increases with increasi
ng excitation power. i.e increasing modal gain, and reaches its maximum at
energies slightly below the spectral position of the gain maximum. High uns
aturated gain factors of up to 40 dB at 300 K have been measured.