Gies Christopher, Wiersig Jan, Jahnke Frank
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Bremen, P.O. Box 330 440, 28334 Bremen, Germany.
Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Aug 8;101(6):067401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.067401. Epub 2008 Aug 5.
In the rapidly evolving field of quantum-dot-based microcavity lasers the device characterization is of great importance. In this Letter, we study how information can be obtained from the input/output curve by using a microscopic laser theory for the coupled cavity-quantum-dot system. Semiconductor effects such as a nonlinear source term of spontaneous emission, Pauli blocking, and the absence of complete carrier inversion lead to significant deviations from atomic systems. Especially for pulsed excitation, saturation effects have a tremendous impact on the input/output characteristics and render a simple determination of the spontaneous emission coupling beta impossible.
