PbS/PbSSe/PbSnSe heterostructure lasers with a quantum-well active region
Shotov A. P. , Selivanov Yu. G.
The effort to lower the threshold current density has led to the development of semiconductor lasers with active-layer thicknesses comparable to the de Broglie wavelength of an electron.1,2 The quantum size effect which results gives rise to a set of lines in the emission spectrum which stem from transitions of electrons between bound states in quantum-mechanical potential wells formed by band discontinuities. A topic of special research interest is the quantum size effect in IV-VI semiconductors, because of the particular band structure of these semiconductors: The dispersion laws for electrons and holes are nearly mirror-symmetric.