@InProceedings{Supelec525,
author = {Adrian Iordachescu and Joel Jacquet},
title = {{Modeling of tunnel junctions for current injection in Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs)}},
year = {2009},
booktitle = {{Proceedings of SPIE : Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices XVII}},
volume = {7211},
number = {13},
pages = {1-12},
month = {Feb},
address = {San Jose, CA (USA)},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.808468},
doi = {10.1117/12.808468},
abstract = {Tunnel junctions have been widely used in the fabrication of Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers since it allows fabrication of low electrical resistance as well as low optical absorption Bragg mirrors. The basic idea is to inject holes through a highly doped reverse biased n+/p+ tunnel junction. We present in this paper a review of the different materials that can be used for various wavelength applications ranging from UV (GaN) to IR (GaSb). We have elaborated a new modelling tool that has been validated for homo-junctions. The results show that the injection efficiency is directly linked to the energy gap of the material and to the effective mass of the electrons and light holes. The first important discussion is related to the condition on doping levels to get the material degenerate. Low band gap materials such as InAs or GaSb semiconductors are well appropriate to realise tunnel junctions with moderate doping levels. At the opposite large band-gap materials as GaN or AlN require very high doping levels to reach the tunnelling condition. GaSb based VCSELs emitting in the infrared region (2- 3 µm) can use very efficiently such electrical injection scheme. On the other side, it will be much less beneficial to use it for surface emitting laser emitting in the ultra violet wavelength range. Comparison with published papers will be discussed as well as preliminary work done in the case of hetero junctions.}
}