High-temperature performance and broad continuous tunability of terahertz quantum-cascade lasers
We demonstrate a terahertz quantum-cascade laser (QCL) operating significantly above the temperature of hv/kB, which had so-far been been an empirical limitation for the maximum operating temperature of these devices. With a design that employs a new scattering-assisted injection scheme, a 1.8 THz Q...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
SPIE
2012
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/73189 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5100-3709 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1982-4053 |
| Summary: | We demonstrate a terahertz quantum-cascade laser (QCL) operating significantly above the temperature of hv/kB, which had so-far been been an empirical limitation for the maximum operating temperature of these devices. With a design that employs a new scattering-assisted injection scheme, a 1.8 THz QCL operating up to a temperature of 1.9hv/kB (163 K) is realized with more than 3 mW of peak optical power output at 150 K. We also demonstrate continuous tunability over a frequency range of 137 GHz of a single-mode QCL operating at 3.8 THz in metal-metal waveguides. A unique concept of altering the lateral mode profile of the "wire laser" waveguide geometry was implemented to achieve tuning despite the strong mode confinement of metal-metal waveguides at terahertz frequencies. |
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