Transistor Laser With 13.5-Gb/s Error-Free Data Transmission

A quantum well transistor laser with a cavity length of L = 200 μm has been designed and fabricated. Threshold current at 20°C is determined to be I
_TH
= 36 mA at V
_CE
= 1.5 V from measured transistor laser collector current-voltage (I
_C
-V
_CE
) and optical power-voltage (L-V
_CE
) characteristics. The transistor laser is measured to have a modulation bandwidth f
_-3dB
= 8.1 GHz for I
_B
= 75 mA (I
_B
/I
_TH
~ 2) with a carrier-photon resonance amplitude (~4.2 dB). At the same bias conditions, the transistor laser demonstrates error-free 13.5-Gb/s data transmission at room temperature.