We report on quantum dot ͑QD͒ lasers made of stacked InAs dots grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. Successful growth of defect-free binary InAs/GaAs QDs with high lateral density (d l у4ϫ10 10 cm Ϫ2) was achieved in a narrow growth parameter window. The room-temperature photoluminescence ͑PL͒ intensity is enhanced up to a factor of 3 and the PL peak width is reduced by more than 30% when a thin layer of In 0.3 Ga 0.7 As is deposited onto the InAs QDs. A QD laser with a single sheet of such InAs/InGaAs/GaAs QDs exhibits threshold current densities as low as 12.7 and 181 A/cm 2 at 100 and 300 K, respectively. Lasers with threefold stacked QDs show ground-state lasing and allow for cw operation at room temperature.
We present gain measurements and calculations for InAs/GaAs quantum dot injection lasers. Measurements of the modal gain and estimation of the confinement factor by transmission electron microscopy yield an exceptionally large material gain of 6.8(±1)×104 cm−1 at 80 A cm−2. Calculations including realistic quantum dot energy levels, dot size fluctuation, nonthermal coupling of carriers in different dots, and band filling effects corroborate this result. A large maximum differential gain of 2×10−12 cm2 at 20 A cm−2 is found. The width of the gain spectrum is determined by participation of excited quantum dot states. We record a low transparency current density of 20 A cm−2. All experiments are carried out at liquid nitrogen temperature.
We have realized injection lasers based on InAs–GaAs and InGaAs–GaAs quantum pyramids (QPs) with a lateral size ranging from 80 to 140 Å. The structures with relatively small dots (∼80 Å) exhibit properties predicted earlier for quantum dot (QD) lasers such as low threshold current densities (below 100 Acm-2) and ultrahigh characteristic temperatures (T
0=350–425 K). For operation temperatures above 100–130 K, T
0 decreases and the threshold current density increases (up to 0.95–3.3 kAcm-2 at room temperature) due to carrier evaporation from QPs. Larger InAs QPs (∼140 Å) providing better carrier localization exhibit saturation of the ground-state emission and enhanced nonradiative recombination rate at high excitation densities. The radiative lifetime shows a weak dependence on the dot size in the range 80–140 Å being close to ∼1.8–2 ns, respectively. A significant decrease in radiative lifetime is realized in vertically coupled quantum dots formed by a QP shape-transformation effect. The final arrangement corresponds to a three-dimensional tetragonal array of InAs islands inserted in a GaAs matrix each composed of several vertically merging InAs parts. We achieved injection lasing in such an array for the first time.
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