Influence of separate confinement heterostructure on emission bandwidth of InGaAsP superluminescent diodes/semiconductor optical amplifiers with nonidentical multiple quantum wells

Experiments show that the layer of separate confinement heterostructure (SCH) has a significant influence on the emission spectrum of superluminescent diodes (SLDs)/semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). Reducing the thickness of SCH layer at the p-side could improve the uniformity of carrier distribution among multiple quantum wells (MQWs). With three In/sub 0.67/Ga/sub 0.33/As/sub 0.72/P/sub 0.28/ QWs near the p-side and two In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As QWs near the n-side, when the thickness of the SCH layer changes from 120 to 30 nm, the operation current for SLDs/SOAs to exhibit the full-width at half-maximum spectral width of above 270 nm could be reduced from 500 to 160 mA.