Influence of inhomogeneous broadening and deliberately introduced disorder on the width of the lasing spectrum of a quantum dot laser

Analytical expressions for the shape and width of the lasing spectra of a quantum-dot (QD) laser in the case of a small (in comparison with the spectrum width) homogeneous broadening of the QD energy levels have been obtained. It is shown that the dependence of the lasing spectrum width on the output power at room temperature is determined by two dimensionless parameters: the width of QD distribution over the optical-transition energy, normalized to temperature, and the ratio of the optical loss to the maximum gain. The optimal dimensions of the laser active region have been found to obtain a specified width of the emission spectrum at a minimum pump current. The possibility of using multilayer structures with QDs to increase the lasing spectrum’s width has been analyzed. It is shown that the use of several arrays of QDs with deliberately variable optical-transition energies leads to broadening of the lasing spectra; some numerical estimates are presented.