Room Temperature CW Operation of Short Wavelength Quantum Cascade Lasers Made of Strain Balanced Ga $_{\bm x}$In$_{\bm {1-x}}$As/Al$_{\bm y}$ In$_{\bm {1-y}}$As Material on InP Substrates

Xie, Feng; Caneau, C.; LeBlanc, H. P.; Visovsky, Nick; Chaparala, Satish C.; Deichmann, Oberon D.; Hughes, Lawrence C.; Zah, Chung−En; Caffey, David; Day, Timothy

doi:10.1109/jstqe.2011.2136325

Cited by 37 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The development of compact coherent sources operating at room temperature in this spectral range is, therefore, of great practical importance, several efforts being made to extend the emission ranges of laser diodes toward longer wavelengths [2] and quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) toward shorter wavelengths [3][4][5]. An alternative way to reach this frequency domain is guided-wave nonlinear frequency conversion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

AlGaAs guided-wave second-harmonic generation at 223 μm from a quantum cascade laser

et al. 2014

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We demonstrate the frequency doubling of a quantum cascade laser in a multilayered, partially oxidized GaAs/AlOx waveguide. Using the waveguide width to fulfill the phase-matching condition, the second harmonic is generated in the wavelength range between 2.2 and 2.4 μm, where not many semiconductor sources are commercially available to date. We discuss the impact of a few fabrication and experimental parameters on the conversion efficiency, an essential step toward the improvement and practical implementation of this proof-of-principle semiconductor microsystem.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

AlGaAs guided-wave second-harmonic generation at 223 μm from a quantum cascade laser

et al. 2014

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“…In recent years significant improvements have been accomplished in the operation performances of QC lasers in the wavelength range of 4-5 µm [6][7][8][9][10][11]. Long wavelength lasers received comparatively less attention and further improvements in their characteristics are necessary.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long wavelength quantum cascade lasers for applications in the second atmospheric window at wavelength of 9-11 microns

et al. 2012

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In the last few years there has been significant progress made in the development of high power and high efficiency quantum cascade lasers in the wavelength range of 4 to 5 microns, while QC lasers in the second atmospheric window have been experiencing performance development at a slower pace. Now similar improvements in the QCL design and growth used for the mid-wave IR (MWIR) can be applied to the long-wave IR (LWIR) with some important differences and adaptations to the challenges presented by the operation at longer wavelengths. These include, among others, a smaller optical confinement, larger losses and inter-miniband leakage, stronger sensitivity to background doping, and the need for thicker waveguides. These factors generally result in the degradation of laser characteristics as the emission wavelength increases. Here we present three new designs in the wavelength range of 8.9 to 10.6 µm and compare their performance and design metrics along with two reference designs in the same spectral range. A selective strain design emitting at 10.3 µm achieved threshold currents and slope efficiencies very close to the reference design emitting at 9.9 µm -thus providing longer wavelength emission with no performance deterioration. From the comparison of the designs presented here, after taking into account the differences in performance metrics of devices designed to operate at longer wavelengths, we can point out the contribution to the laser characteristics of the carrier leakage from the upper lasing state to the upper miniband and to the continuum, and of the coupling strength between injector and upper lasing level. We find that designs with similar metrics but larger splitting between ground injector and upper lasing level exhibit superior performance than those with smaller coupling.

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“…1 In addition, for 4.6-4.8 μm QCLs operated around room temperature (RT), the electrons in the injector and the upper laser level are found to have a higher temperature than that of the that of the lattice; 2-4 that is, they are hot. In turn, conventional, high-performance QCLs emitting in the 4.5-5.0 μm range suffer from severe carrier leakage, which results in low characteristictemperature T 0 values (130-150 K) for the threshold-current density, J th , [3][4][5][6] and low characteristic-temperature T 1 values (140-170 K) for the slope efficiency, η sl , 3,5,6 at heatsink temperatures above RT. In turn, the maximum wallplug efficiency η wp,max in CW operation at RT, for light emitted from the front facet of conventional devices with highreflectivity-coated back facets, has typical values 7,8 of only ≈ 13%, and no statistically relevant lifetest data have been reported to date for high-power CW devices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In turn, the maximum wallplug efficiency η wp,max in CW operation at RT, for light emitted from the front facet of conventional devices with highreflectivity-coated back facets, has typical values 7,8 of only ≈ 13%, and no statistically relevant lifetest data have been reported to date for high-power CW devices. Furthermore, thermally accelerated lifetime studies 6 have been limited to low CW powers (0.50 -2.0 W); thus, no device-aging model can be arrived at for high-power (≥ 0.5 W) CW QCLs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tapered active-region, mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers for complete suppression of carrier-leakage currents

et al. 2012

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A new deep-well (DW) quantum-cascade laser (QCL) design: Tapered Active-Region (TA), for which the barrier layers in each active region are tapered such that their conduction band edges increase in energy from the injection barrier to the exit barrier, causes a significant increase in the energy difference between the upper laser level and the next higher energy level, E 54 ; thus, resulting in further carrier-leakage suppression compared to DW QCLs. High E 54 values (80 -100 meV) are primarily obtained because the energy separation between the first excited states of a pair of coupled QWs (CQWs) is larger when the CQWs are asymmetric than when they are symmetric. Then, we reach an optimized TA-QCL design (λ= 4.7 μm) for which E 54 values as high as 99 meV are obtained, while insuring good carrier depopulation of the lower laser level (i.e., τ 3 = 0.2 ps) via the double-phonon-resonance scheme. In addition, the upper-laser-level lifetime increases by ~ 15 % compared to that for conventional QCLs. As a result, the relative carrier leakage decreases to values ≤ 1% and the room-temperature (RT) threshold-current density decreases by ~ 25 % compared to that for conventional QCLs. Then, we estimate that single-facet, continuous-wave (CW) RT wallplug-efficiency values as high as 27 % are possible. Preliminary results from TA QCLs include T 0 and T 1 values as high as 231 K and 797 K, respectively, over the 20-60 o C heatsink-temperature range.

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Room Temperature CW Operation of Short Wavelength Quantum Cascade Lasers Made of Strain Balanced Ga $_{\bm x}$In$_{\bm {1-x}}$As/Al$_{\bm y}$ In$_{\bm {1-y}}$As Material on InP Substrates

Cited by 37 publications

References 24 publications

AlGaAs guided-wave second-harmonic generation at 223 μm from a quantum cascade laser

AlGaAs guided-wave second-harmonic generation at 223 μm from a quantum cascade laser

Long wavelength quantum cascade lasers for applications in the second atmospheric window at wavelength of 9-11 microns

Tapered active-region, mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers for complete suppression of carrier-leakage currents

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