Optical Sources, Detectors, and Systems

Chapter 3

The Semiconductor Laser

We have now developed a plausible and quantitative description of optical amplification and oscillation and very briefly reviewed inversion techniques and typical lasers. In this chapter we consider in great detail the semiconductor laser. We choose this particular type because of its broad applications, from fiber optic communication to compact disk player readout. We also find our consideration of semiconductor p-n junctions useful in a treatment of junction photodiodes in Chapter 5.

Unlike most of the optically pumped laser systems that utilize transitions between discrete energy levels, the semiconductor laser depends on transitions of electrons between a continuum of allowed energies in the conduction