Numerically efficient representation of anisotropic valence bands in semiconductor quantum-well optoelectronic devices

We present a computationally efficient approach to representing valence band (VB) anisotropies in semiconductor quantum-well optoelectronic devices. The VB dispersion is calculated along the high-symmetry lang100rang and lang110rang axes with the four-band kmiddotp method. The VB isoenergy contours are represented by a first-order Fourier series expansion, which is used to calculate the subband density of states (DOS), the optical DOS and gain. In this way, each photon is allowed to interact with electrons and holes over a finite range of energy states, even without including lifetime broadening effects