Design strategy for terahertz quantum dot cascade lasers

Design strategy for terahertz quantum dot cascade lasers.

The development of quantum dot cascade lasers has been proposed as a path to obtain terahertz semiconductor lasers that operate at room temperature. The expected benefit is due to the suppression of nonradiative electron-phonon scattering and reduced dephasing that accompanies discretization of the electronic energy spectrum. We present numerical modeling which predicts that simple scaling of c...

Design Optimization for 4.1-THZ Quantum Cascade Lasers

We present an optimized design for GaAs/AlGaAs quantum cascade lasers operating at ‎‎4.1THz. This was based on a three-well active module with diagonal radiative transition. This ‎was performed by modifying the existing model structure, to reduce the parasitic anticrossings ‎‎(leakage currents) as well as the optical gain linewidth. While the gain FWHM was reduced by ‎more than 50% the gain pea...

Nanowire terahertz quantum cascade lasers

Terahertz photonic crystal quantum cascade lasers.

We combine photonic crystal and quantum cascade band engineering to create an in-plane laser at terahertz frequency. We demonstrate that such photonic crystal lasers strongly improve the performances of terahertz quantum cascade material in terms of threshold current, waveguide losses, emission mode selection, tunability and maximum operation temperature. The laser operates in a slow-light regi...

Tall-barrier terahertz quantum cascade lasers

A terahertz quantum cascade laser is presented in which selectively placed pure AlAs barriers are used to reduce parasitic leakage currents to the conduction band continuum. The design is demonstrated to have improved temperature performance over a regrowth of the current Tmax 200 K record holder (181 K vs. 175 K). Strangely, it fails to lase below 70 K, which we attribute to negative different...