Optical Properties of Manufactured III-V's and II-VI's Short Wavelength Laser Structures

We focus on most commonly used epitaxial growth techniques of quantum wells (QWs) and study the single electron transitions within the QW laser structures made with II-VI's (e.g. CdSe/ZnSe) and III-V's (e.g. GaN/AlN), considering only emission of longitudinal optical (LO) phonons. Two different approaches have been employed in order to describe the initial electron wavefunctions in the continuum energy spectrum: the width of the barrier region is a) small b) large, relative to the electron mean free path. For the LO phonons, we have used the bulk phonon approximation and the dielectric continuum (DC) model to study the lattice dynamics in the crystal. Our theoretical models show that the scattering times for II-VI's are very short comparing to the III-V's semiconductor (except the V-III nitrides) laser structures and highlight that the size of the well is of special importance for the laser operation.