Analysis of strain effects on the dynamic spectra of a quantum well semiconductor optical amplifier using quantum well transmission line modelling method

This paper studies the strain (i.e. compressive (CS) and tensile (TS)) effects on the dynamic spectra of an amplified femtosecond pulse in a quantum well semiconductor optical amplifier (QW-SOA) using quantum well transmission line modelling (QW-TLM) method. Based on the analysis of band structure, the gain spectrum as well as the spontaneous spectrum of quantum well (QW) in the CS, unstrained (US) and TS are investigated using QW-TLM and it was found that in the CS QW, the magnitude ratio of the gain spectrum and the spontaneous emission spectrum is the largest. Furthermore, QW-TLM is adopted to investigate the dynamic spectral evolution of femtosecond pulse amplification in QW-SOAs and it was found that as the femtosecond pulse approaches the amplifier output, the centre frequency of the amplified femtosecond pulse spectra decreases and its bandwidth decreases. The output spectra of the amplified femtosecond pulse in QW amplifiers under the CS, US and TS cases are compared and the simulation results show that in a CS QW-SOA the spectral shape exhibits the largest magnitude and the smallest fluctuation due to the largest gain and the largest ratio between the gain and noise.