Optoelectronic devices and materials

Abstract

Unlike semiconductorlasermodulatordetector the majority of electronic devices, which are silicon based, optoelectronic devices are predominantly made using III–V semiconductor compounds such as GaAs, InP, GaN, and GaSb, and their alloys due to their direct-band gap. Understanding the properties of these materials has been of vital importance in the development of optoelectronic devices. Since the first demonstration of a semiconductor laser in the early 1960s, optoelectronic devices have been produced in their millions, pervading our everyday lives in communications, computing, entertainment, lighting, and medicine. It is perhaps their use in optical-fiber communications that has had the greatest impact on humankind, enabling high-quality and inexpensive voice and data transmission across the globe. Optical communications spawned a number of developments in optoelectronics, leading to devices such as vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, semiconductor optical amplifiers, optical modulators, and avalanche photodiodes. In this chapter, we discuss the underlying theory of operation of some important optoelectronic devices. The influence of carrier–photon interactions is discussed in the context of producing efficient and high-performance emitters and detectors. Finally, we discuss how the semiconductor band structure can be manipulated to enhance device properties using quantum confinement and strain effects, and how the addition of dilute amounts of elements such as nitrogen and bismuth is having a profound effect on the next generation of optoelectronic devices.