Effect of (101¯0) crystal orientation on many-body optical gain of wurtzite InGaN/GaN quantum well

The optical properties of (101¯0)-oriented wurtzite (WZ) InGaN/GaN quantum well (QW) lasers are investigated using the multiband effective-mass theory and the non-Markovian gain model with many-body effects. These results are also compared with those of (0001)-oriented WZ InGaN/GaN QW with piezoelectric and spontaneous polarizations taken into account. The optical gain of the (101¯0)-oriented QW is largely enhanced over that of the (0001)-oriented QW. This can be explained by the fact that the optical matrix elements near the band edge (k=0) of the (101¯0)-oriented InGaN/GaN QW significantly increase compared to that of the (0001)-oriented structure, in addition to the reduction of the effective mass. The threshold current density J_th of the (101¯0)-oriented QW is expected to be about half that of the (0001)-oriented QW structure. © 2003 American Institute of Physics.