Characteristics of low threshold 1.3 /spl mu/m lasers grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy

We report on the growth and characterization of high quality 1.3 /spl mu/m lasers grown by SSMBE with various laser structures and core materials. Our best 1.3 /spl mu/m lasers utilize compressively strained InAsP/GaInAsP quantum wells. Compressive strain serves to decrease the heavy hole effective mass which reduces the density of states of the valence band resulting in lower threshold currents as compared to lattice matched devices. The room temperature photoluminescence and threshold current density versus inverse cavity length are shown.