N. Bandyopadhyay

Room temperature quantum cascade lasers with 27% wall plug efficiency

Using the recently proposed shallow-well design, we demonstrate InP based quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) emitting around 4.9 μm with 27% and 21% wall plug efficiencies in room temperature (298 K) pulsed and continuous wave (cw) operations, respectively. The laser core consists of 40 QCL-stages. The highest cw efficiency is obtained from a buried-ridge device with a ridge width of 8 μm and a cavity length of 5 mm. The front and back facets are antireflection and high-reflection coated, respectively. The maximum single facet cw power at room temperature amounts to 5.1 W.

2.4 W room temperature continuous wave operation of distributed feedback quantum cascade lasers

We demonstrate high power continuous-wave room-temperature operation surface-grating distributed feedback quantum cascade lasers at 4.8 μm. High power single mode operation benefits from a combination of high-reflection and antireflection coatings. Maximum single-facet continuous-wave output power of 2.4 W and peak wall plug efficiency of 10% from one facet is obtained at 298 K. Single mode operation with a side mode suppression ratio of 30 dB and single-lobed far field without beam steering is observed.

Room temperature single-mode terahertz sources based on intracavity difference-frequency generation in quantum cascade lasers

We demonstrate room temperature single-mode THz emission at 4 THz based on intracavity difference-frequency generation from mid-infrared dual-wavelength quantum cascade lasers. An integrated dual-period distributed feedback grating is defined on the cap layer to purify both mid-infrared pumping wavelengths and in turn the THz spectra. Single mode operation of the pumping wavelengths results in a single-mode THz operation with a narrow linewidth of 6.6 GHz. A maximum THz power of 8.5 μW with a power conversion efficiency of 10 μW/W2 is obtained at room temperature.

Room temperature continuous wave operation of λ ∼ 3–3.2 μm quantum cascade lasers

We demonstrate quantum cascade lasers emitting at wavelengths of 3–3.2 μm in the InP-based material system. The laser core consists of GaInAs/AlInAs using strain balancing technique. In room temperature pulsed mode operation, threshold current densities of 1.66 kA/cm2 and 1.97 kA/cm2, and characteristic temperatures (T0) of 108 K and 102 K, are obtained for the devices emitting at 3.2 μm and 3 μm, respectively. Room temperature continuous wave operation is achieved at both wavelengths.

Highly temperature insensitive quantum cascade lasers

An InP based quantum cascade laser (QCL) heterostructure emitting around 5 μm is grown with gas-source molecular beam epitaxy. The QCL core design takes a shallow-well approach to maximize the characteristic temperatures, T0 and T1, for operations above room temperature. A T0 value of 383 K and a T1 value of 645 K are obtained within a temperature range of 298–373 K. In room temperature continuous wave operation, this design gives a single facet output power of 3 W and a wall plug efficiency of 16% from a device with a cavity length of 5 mm and a ridge width of 8 μm.

Quantum cascade lasers: from tool to product

The quantum cascade laser (QCL) is an important laser source in the mid-infrared and terahertz frequency range. The past twenty years have witnessed its tremendous development in power, wall plug efficiency, frequency coverage and tunability, beam quality, as well as various applications based on QCL technology. Nowadays, QCLs can deliver high continuous wave power output up to 5.1 W at room temperature, and cover a wide frequency range from 3 to 300 μm by simply varying the material components. Broadband heterogeneous QCLs with a broad spectral range from 3 to 12 μm, wavelength agile QCLs based on monolithic sampled grating design, and on-chip beam QCL combiner are being developed for the next generation tunable mid-infrared source for spectroscopy and sensing. Terahertz sources based on nonlinear generation in QCLs further extend the accessible wavelength into the terahertz range. Room temperature continuous wave operation, high terahertz power up to 1.9 mW, and wide frequency tunability form 1 to 5 THz makes this type of device suitable for many applications in terahertz spectroscopy, imaging, and communication.

Continuous operation of a monolithic semiconductor terahertz source at room temperature

We demonstrate room temperature continuous wave THz sources based on intracavity difference-frequency generation from mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers. Buried ridge, buried composite distributed-feedback waveguide with Cerenkov phase-matching scheme is used to reduce the waveguide loss and enhance the heat dissipation for continuous wave operation. Continuous emission at 3.6 THz with a side-mode suppression ratio of 20 dB and output power up to 3 μW are achieved, respectively. THz peak power is further scaled up to 1.4 mW in pulsed mode by increasing the mid-infrared power through increasing the active region doping and device area.

Watt level performance of quantum cascade lasers in room temperature continuous wave operation at λ∼3.76 μm

An InP-based quantum cascade laser heterostructure emitting at 3.76 μm is grown with gas-source molecular beam epitaxy. The laser core is composed of strain balanced In0.76Ga0.24As/In0.26Al0.74As. Pulsed testing at room temperature exhibits a low threshold current density (1.5 kA/cm2) and high wall plug efficiency (10%). Room temperature continuous wave operation gives 6% wall plug efficiency with a maximum output power of 1.1 W. Continuous wave operation persists up to 95 °C.

Widely tuned room temperature terahertz quantum cascade laser sources based on difference-frequency generation

We demonstrate room temperature THz quantum cascade laser sources with a broad spectral coverage based on intracavity difference-frequency generation. Two mid-infrared active cores based on the single-phonon resonance scheme are designed with a THz nonlinearity specially optimized at the high operating fields that correspond to the highest mid-infrared output powers. A Cerenkov phase-matching scheme along with integrated dual-period distributed feedback gratings are used for efficient THz extraction and spectral purification. Single mode emissions from 1.0 to 4.6 THz with a side-mode suppression ratio and output power up to 40 dB and 32 μW are obtained, respectively.

High power, continuous wave, room temperature operation of λ ∼ 3.4 μm and λ ∼ 3.55 μm InP-based quantum cascade lasers

We report two highly strain-balanced InP-based AlInAs/GaInAs quantum cascade lasers emitting near 3.39 and 3.56 μm. A pulsed threshold current density of only 1.1 kA/cm2 has been achieved at room temperature for both lasers with characteristic temperatures (T0) of 166 K and 152 K, respectively. The slope efficiency is also relatively temperature insensitive with characteristic temperatures (T1) of 116 K and 191 K, respectively. Continuous wave powers of 504 mW and 576 mW are obtained at room temperature, respectively. This was accomplished without buried ridge processing.