We report on stimulated emission at wavelengths up to 19.5 μm from HgTe/HgCdTe quantum well heterostructures with wide-gap HgCdTe dielectric waveguide, grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs(013) substrates. The mitigation of Auger processes in structures under study is exemplified, and the promising routes towards the 20–50 μm wavelength range, where HgCdTe lasers may be competitive to the prominent emitters, are discussed.

The energy spectra of the mercury vacancy, the most common acceptor in HgCdTe material, is studied via numerical calculations and low temperature photoconductivity (PC) measurements of 'vacancy-doped' HgCdTe films with low cadmium content. Since the Hg vacancy is known to be a double acceptor, the model for the helium atom was adopted for degerate valence band of zinc blende semiconductors to classify the observed PC bands. This approach provides a fairly good description of the photoionization of both neutral and singly-ionized vacancy when the central cell potential is taken into account.

Due to their specific physical properties, HgCdTe-based heterostructures are expected to play an important role in terahertz photonic systems. Here, focusing on gated devices presenting inverted band ordering, we evidence an enhancement of the terahertz photoconductive response close to the charge neutrality point and at the magnetic field driven topological phase transition. We also show the ability of these heterostructures to be used as terahertz imagers. Regarding terahertz emitters, we present results on stimulated emission of HgCdTe heterostructures in their conventional semiconductor state above 30 THz, discussing the physical mechanisms involved and promising routes towards the 5–15 THz frequency domain.

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