Measurement of carrier lifetime and linewidth enhancement factor for 1.5- mu m ridge-waveguide laser amplifier

Semiconductor optical amplifiers are used for investigation of the effective carrier lifetime and the linewidth enhancement factor. Contrary to semiconductor lasers, semiconductor optical amplifiers allow measurement at high levels of injected carrier density. The carrier lifetime and the linewidth enhancement factor are measured with a simple dynamic self-heterodyne method.

Carrier lifetimes of 750 ps at the threshold current for the SOA without antireflection coating and 200 ps at high injection have been found. The linewidth enhancement factor is measured to be between 4 and 17 which fits with a simple empirical expression.