The piezoelectric effects on the optical gain of wurtzite GaN/AlGaN QW lasers taking into account the many-body effects are presented. The self-consistent model with piezoelectric field effect shows that band structures and optical gain are significantly affected by the piezoelectric field at relatively low carrier densities. The peak gain is redshifted and smaller when compared to the flat-band model without piezoelectric field effect. Only gain peaks corresponding to C1-HH1 and C1-LH1 transitions are observed in the investigated range and transitions for C1-HH2 and C1-LH2 are negligible due to the large subband energy spacing at low carrier densities and small matrix elements at high carrier densities. At high carrier densities, the self-consistent model shows band structures and optical properties similar to the flat-band model due to the screening effects. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.