Performance comparison of GaInNAs vertical cavity semiconductor amplifiers

This paper reports on theoretical and experimental investigations of the influence of the number of GaInNAs quantum wells (QWs) on performance of 1.3-/spl mu/m vertical-cavity semiconductor optical amplifiers (VCSOAs). Full characterization is carried out for two optically pumped VCSOAs with 6 and 15 QWs in the active layer. The 15-QW amplifier is found to be more efficient for amplification purposes but the highest gain to date was obtained for a 6-QW GaInNAs VCSOA, 19-dB on-chip gain in single-mode operation, having a top mirror reflectivity of 97.7%. At high-gain and for low enough reflectivity, the intrinsic noise figure is smaller than 5 dB