Results of studying stripe quantum cascade lasers emitting at room temperature in the spectral range of 4.8 µm are presented. Power characteristics and turn-on dynamics of the lasers upon pulse pumping are studied. The performed investigations demonstrate the presence of a significant heating of the active region during the pump pulse.

We report on room-temperature generation at the 4.8-μm wavelength in a lattice-matched structure of a quantum cascade laser (QCL) grown on indium phosphide (InP) substrate. Laser heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) comprised 30 cascades and were designed to generate at the 4.80 μm wavelength corresponding to an atmospheric transparency window. Experiments demonstrated effective lasing at temperatures from 80 to 300 K on a wavelength coinciding with the calculated value, which confirmed the high quality of interfaces, high precision of layer thicknesses, and high accuracy of active region doping.