| The past decade has seen the continued development of a wide array of optoelectronic systems, most notably optoelectronic interconnects for short- and long-distance communications. Consequently, there exists a growing need for suitable computer-aided design tools that would allow the simulation of these applications in advance of their actual fabrication. While such tools are already well-established in conventional electronics, their use in optoelectronics continues to evolve. Of particular importance is the development of optoelectronic device models which can be used in conjunction with electronic components for the circuit-level simulation of optoelectronic circuits.; Motivated by these observations, in this thesis we present circuit-level device models for semiconductor lasers. First, we present the implementation of rate-equation-based quantum-well-laser models in SPICE. Because it is critical that these models determine the correct numerical solution of the rate equations during dc simulation, we demonstrate analytically that the use of variable transformations for the carrier and photon densities limits the models to a single dc-solution regime under nonnegative current injection. We also extract model parameters from measured device characteristics and discuss the reasonable agreement obtained between simulated and experimental data.; We then present circuit-level models for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and their strong thermally and spatially dependent behavior. The first approach, implemented in both HSPICE and SABER, is a simple thermal model which incorporates a temperature-dependent offset current into the standard laser rate equations in order to describe thermally dependent threshold current and output-power rollover in the LI characteristics. The second model is a comprehensive circuit level model in SABER which uses analytical temperature dependencies and spatially independent rate equations to describe a VCSEI's thermal and spatial behavior. In addition to simulating thermal LI characteristics, this latter model can also be used to simulate multimode competition, temperature-dependent modulation responses, and diffusive transients in the time domain. After presenting the theory and implementation of our VCSEL models, we compare simulated and experimental data for various devices reported in the literature. Despite some important modeling and characterization issues, the data compare favorably. |
