NLCSTR provides Gain Databases (Tables) for standard III-V and II-VI material systems.

The material properties within these databases allow for a complete closed loop design of a laser, starting with the nominal structural design (layer-widths, -compositions and dopant concentrations) and predicting the operating characteristics from lasing wavelength to input-output characteristics within the error of the experiment.

Our quantitative calculations predict essential material characteristics for a wide variety of optoelectronic devices including semiconductor lasers, amplifiers or modulators. The analysis is rather general requiring very few restrictions to the material systems or structural layouts. Using state of the art microscopic many-body calculations we calculate:

• gain, absorption, and refractive index spectra,
• spontaneous emission (photo luminescence) spectra,
• loss currents due to radiative recombination,
• loss currents due to Auger processes,
• intraband (free carrier) absorption,

as well as related related quantities such as differential gain or linewidth enhancement factors.
Our approach includes microscopic calculations of dephasing times and lineshape functions, thus avoiding phenomenological inputs needed in less sophisticated approaches.

In a variety of comparisons with experimental measurements the results of our calculations have been shown to be accurate to within the experimental error. All significant features, such as gain amplitudes, line shapes, spectral positions or recombination currents and their dependencies on the carrier density/pump current or temperature are reproduced correctly, demonstrating the predictive capabilities of our simulations.


These results could be used

• as correct input for simulators calculating device performance and characteristics like the RSoft design tools from Synopsys Inc., or Crosslight Software Inc.'s Lastip,

• to help speed up and reduce expenses occuring in the development of new devices (see e.g. the example description),

• for precise device analysis as explained for the examples of an edge-emitting device and a VECSEL in the example description.



For more details about Gain Databases go here.