IMPEDANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF DOUBLE-HETERO STRUCTURE LASER-DIODES

The effects of the onset of lasing on the I-V characteristics, the impedance characteristics and the light modulation characteristics of laser diodes have been discussed by introducing the rate equations which involve carrier diffusion process in the active layer interacting with the radiation field intensity. The static I-V characteristics exhibit a kink at lasing threshold current, reflecting the decrease of effective lifetime of carriers. Effective carrier lifetimes decrease with increasing light intensity, which results in a steep attenuation of injected carrier density in the active region. The impedance and light modulation characteristics are obtained in the small signal approximation. The small signal light modulation characteristics depend strongly on whether the laser diode is excited by the constant current modulation or the constant voltage modulation. The impedance is changed drastically by the onset of lasing and exhibits a resonance which coincides exactly with the optical modulation resonance frequency. © 1979.