Abstract

Experimentally validated rigorous microscopic many-body calculations of semiconductor gain and refractive index spectra for a wide variety of Quantum Well structures [1] provide the foundation on which we build a full scale space-time interactive simulation model of both low and high power semiconductor lasers. The simulation model is extremely flexible utilizing look-up tables generated for a particular QW structure with confinement barriers (GRINSCH, SCH). The ability now exists to design and optimize laser structures starting from the same level as the materials grower. The core of the interactive simulation tool is built using the object-oriented C⁺⁺ language and the graphical interfaces are built using Java and Python. Communications are handled with CORBA. An optical system graphical editor (OSGE) allows the user to attach modules from a pull-down menu and write their own modules for specific applications. Basic optical elements such as AR, HR coatings, beam splitters, gratings, external reflectors are readily incorporated for general system simulation. The nonlinear partial differential equations describing optical propagation and the space-time evolution of the carrier density and temperature profile evolution within the semiconductor laser are extremely stiff mathematically and require a special algorithm using a memory function approach to achieve the speed-up necessary for interactive simulation.

© 2000 IEEE