Continuous wave operation of quantum cascade lasers is reported up to a temperature of 312 kelvin. The devices were fabricated as buried heterostructure lasers with high-reflection coatings on both laser facets, resulting in continuous wave operation with optical output power ranging from 17 milliwatts at 292 kelvin to 3 milliwatts at 312 kelvin, at an emission wavelength of 9.1 micrometers. The results demonstrate the potential of quantum cascade lasers as continuous wave mid-infrared light sources for high-resolution spectroscopy, chemical sensing applications, and free-space optical communication systems.The mid-infrared portion of the spectrum, covering approximately the wavelength range from 3 to 12 m, is sometimes referred to as "underdeveloped" because of its lack of convenient coherent optical sources. Especially when compared to the visible or near-infrared spectral range, where interband semiconductor lasers are now produced very economically with continuous wave (CW) output power of tens of milliwatts, this assertion holds true. In the mid-infrared, a new class of semiconductor lasers-intersubband quantum cascade (QC) lasers (1)-has become a promising alternative to interband diode lasers (2, 3) in the past 7 years. In these devices, photon emission is obtained by electrons making optical transitions between confined energy lev-

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A quantum-cascade structure combining the advantages of the three-quantum well and superlattice active regions is demonstrated. In these devices, the emission occurs between a state localized close to the injection barrier and a miniband. A low threshold current density (3.6 kA/cm2), large slope efficiency (200 mW/A for 35 periods), and peak power (700 mW) are achieved at 30 °C while a peak power of 90 mW is obtained at temperatures as high as 150 °C.

High-temperature operation of a low-threshold 5.3 μm quantum-cascade distributed feedback laser is presented. The emission spectrum was single mode with more than 20 dB side mode suppression ratio for all investigated temperatures and up to thermal rollover. For 1.5% duty cycle and at 0 °C, the laser emitted 1.15 W of single mode peak power; at 120 °C, a value of 92 mW was seen. For a 3 mm long device, we observed a room-temperature threshold current density of 3.6 kA/cm2. This remarkable performance is mainly due to a 4 quantum-well active region using a double phonon resonance for the lower laser level.

We present a room temperature operated 5.35μm quantum cascade detector which was tested at high frequencies using an optical heterodyne experiment. Two slightly detuned continuous wave distributed feedback single mode quantum cascade lasers were used to generate a beating signal. The maximum frequency at which the resulting microwave signal could be detected was 23GHz. The cutoff behavior of our device was modeled with a simple RLC circuit and showed excellent agreement with the experimental data.