A self-consistent approach to spectral hole burning in quantum wire lasers

In a semiconductor laser above threshold, carriers are extracted at the lasing energy at a high rate due to stimulated emission and are injected at higher energies. This creates a ‘‘hole burning’’ phenomenon resulting in gain compression. This effect is studied in a quantum wire laser by solving the Boltzmann equation with sink and source terms by a novel Monte Carlo technique. The results for various values of the characteristic injection times are given. A formalism is also proposed for the fully self-consistent determination of the laser operating parameters from the rate equations with the inclusion of nonlinear gain effects by substituting the correct form of the distribution function in presence of hole burning into the standard expressions for the laser material gain. The nonlinear gain effect is then described completely starting from the wire band structure and scattering rates. The generality of the proposed technique and its possible extensions and applications to the problem of nonlinear gain in quantum-well lasers are discussed.