Radiance: Fast emission Tesponse ti > Emission response time: tis a time delay between N the pplication of Onset of optical emission, & current pulse and the oe Thiccs delay is the factor limiting the bandwidth with which the Source (light) can be mod: lated Cntensity modulation) directly by Varying the injected current, > Quantum efficiency; (i : hole pairs Ot S related to the fraction of the electron - “combing Tadiatively.Oates! 4.2. LED Structures Aine pce Y LED's shonld provide a high radiance and a high quantum ficiene, a must achieve carrier and optical confi inement. Y Carrier confinement is used to achieve a high level of radi recombination in the active region of the device, which yields a big quantum efficiency. Y Optical confinement is used for preventing absorption of the emit radiation by the material surrounding the pn junction. a => Hetrojunction structure: semiconductor materials with different band — gap enerpig Hetrojunction are also known as double hetero structure d because of two different alloy layers on each side of the act region. BA 2 2 ' | 8 t Injected 8 electrons Ms Electron brarrier 8 a $Y {ectron hole recombination nn hv = 820nm Se Injected holes | Hole|barrier > Refractive index | Waveguide region = Fig. 3.3. GaAlAS double — hetero structure light emitteren Se: wal sources and Coupling sent layers confine th 1 eT the bandgap energy difference of adjacent layers confine the charge carriers and. yefractive indiées difference of adjoining layers confine the optical field to the central active layer. So, high efficiency and high radiance is obtained due to this dual confinement. The Electron — hole recombination occurs only in active In GaAsP layer, A double heterojunction (DH) structure will confine both holes and electrons to a narrow active layer. ‘Under forward bias, there will be a large number of carriers injected into active region where they are efficiently confined, 43, LED configurations The wo basic LED configurations are used in optical fiber links. (i) Surface emitters LEDs (Burns or front emitters) (ii) Edge emitters LEDs: and 3.4.3.1. Surface Emitting LEDs (SLEDs): Y These types of LEDs are needed, where data rates in excess of 100Mbps are required. = vin Surface. emitting LEDs the plane of activé light — emitting region is perpendicular to the fiber axis. A well is etched in-a substrate (GaAs) to avoid the the emitted emitted light. eavy absorption of diation, and the-fiber is then connected to accept the Y The circular active area in practical surface emitters is nominally S0.an in diameter and upto 2.5 an thick, The emi: 4120° half power beam width.” ion pattern is isotropic with38 Optical Communicar, cere Light output x A Multimode: optical fiber Bonding material a Metalization fs Etched well | >> Substrate Confinement _77* Double layers a j=] “heterojunction layers | Sid, isolation Heat sink X Active region Circular metal contact Fig.3.4. Surface emitting LED => Lambertian pattern: ¥ Isotropic pattern from a surface emitter, is called /ambert pattern. In this pattern, the source is equally bright when from any direction. Y This radiation pattern decides the coupling efficiency of L Y The source is equally bright when viewed from any directi power diminishes as cos@ Where @ is the angle between vei direction and the normal to the surface. Power is exactly down of its peak when @ = 60°. So that the total half power be width is 1202 j They allow more power to be coupled into the optical fibef they are also more difficult and expensive to manufacture. c 1.3.2, Edge Emitter LED (ELEDs): ¥ Edge emitting LEDs emit a more directional light pattem surface emitting LEDs.and Coupling | Sow 39 der to reduce the losses caused by absorption in the active layer and ¥ Inorder to re make the beam more directional, the light is collected from the to edge of the LED. Such a device is known as edge emitting LED or ELED, The edge emitting LED has transparent guiding layers with very thin : active i of 50 t0 100z0n in order that the light produced in the active transparent guiding layers, reducing self absorption in the active layer, layer spreads into the The guiding layers have refractive indices lower than the active region ig material. The layers are like core and Cladding of the fiber, This structure forms a Wave; guide channel that directs the radiation toward the fiber core. but higher than outer Surroundin: optical Stripe contact (defines active area) -ght- guiding layers. Metalization (for electric contact) jh Substrate / [-— Double - heterojunction i layers Metalization (relectic contact) 8.) In coherent 1 tical output Heat sink 7 Bea Active area Where @) = 390 811 51200 Fig. 3.5, Edge — emitting double — heterojunction LED “ To match the typical fiber — core diameters (50 - 100m) the contact Stripes for the Cdge emitter are 50~ 79,0 ‘wide! ea ~ 0 the plane Parallel to the junction, where there is no waveguide effect the emitted beam is Jambertiai “ath of 61, = 1299, n (varying as cos®) with a half — poweres 3.10 Optical Communication Y Inthe plane perpendicular to the Junction, the half power beam width g | has been made as small as 25 to 35° by 4 proper choice of waveguig, thickness. => Benefits: v Edge emitters have a substantially better modulation bandwidth of the order of hundreds of megahertz the comparable surface — emitting structures with the same drive level. ‘The coupling losses with surface emitters are greater, and they have narrow bandwidths. 116 1.20 1.24 «1.28 1.32 1.36 1.40 1.44 Fig. 3.6. Typical spectral output characteristics for InGaAsP surface and edge - emitting LEDs operating in the 1.344 wavelength region.