Measurement of spontaneous-emission factor of AlGaAs double-heterostructure semiconductor lasers

In this paper, experimental determination of the spontaneous-emission factor of an injection laser is presented. For a lot of conventional AlGaAs DH stripe lasers, spontaneous-emission factors of about 10
^-5
were obtained from the measurement of the light intensity of a lasing mode versus the injected current. These values are in good agreement with the theoretical prediction based upon the classical wave theory. Brief discussion of the magnitude of the spontaneous-emission factor is given relating to the direct modulation characteristics of a semiconductor laser, which shows that the damping oscillation can be decreased in a laser consisting of very small active region.