Abstract

Theoretical studies of spectral hole burning in semiconductors lasers require two equally important ingredients: (i) the dynamics of the coupled carrier-photon system and (ii) a microscopical description of the carrier–carrier scattering. The first point is common to all laser theories, where the laser field (given as classical field amplitude or indirectly as a quantum-mechanical expectation value of field-correlation functions) is driven by the polarization of the semiconductor. The material polarization is essentially determined by the carrier inversion (i.e., the distribution functions of electrons and holes), and thus, by microscopical carrier–carrier scattering processes. The scattering affects the lasing process in a twofold way. First, it yields a refilling of the carrier states emptied by stimulated emission, and second, it leads to a decay of the polarization (dephasing). Thus, a possible spectral hole in the probe spectrum of a laser is itself crucially influenced by the carrier kinetics and the polarization decay. We evaluate a set of equations consistently describing the field (in terms of correlation functions) and material properties for continuously pumped single-mode short cavity laser.

© 1991 Optical Society of America