Transient process in an injection laser with a non-quasi-Fermi electron distribution function

A calculation is made of the reaction of a semiconductor laser to rapid changes in the injection current. An allowance is made for deviations of the nonequilibrium carrier distribution function from the quasi-Fermi form when these deviations are characterized by an effective relaxation time τ_eff governed by the rates of intraband relaxation and polarization decay. It is shown that for typical parameters of a heterojunction laser the nature of its transient characteristic changes radically (from deep relaxation pulsations to a practically instantaneous repetition of the changes in the injection current) when τ_eff increases from 10^–13 to 10^–12 sec.