Toward Peltier-cooled mid-infrared HgCdTe lasers: Analyzing the temperature quenching of stimulated emission at ?6 <i>?</i>m wavelength from HgCdTe quantum wells

Despite the ultimate performance of existing cascade lasers, simple interband emitters in mid-infrared (IR) can still be interest as a cheaper and widely tunable alternative for some applications. In this work, we show stimulated emission (SE) at 5–6 ?m wavelength from an optically pumped mercury–cadmium–telluride quantum well (QW) heterostructures temperatures up to 200 K. At lower temperatures, SE threshold appears mostly determined by conventional eeh Auger recombination, while contribution QW-specific ehh processes is limited. higher establish heating electron gas pumping radiation primary factor responsible thermal quenching SE. Consequently, both scheme QW designs should carefully revised minimize carrier order realize near-to-mid-IR optical converters operating close ambient temperature. We suggest using low-barrier QWs excessive heat introduced upon capture also eliminate involving excited subbands. Thus, HgCdTe lasers are expected reach readily attainable under thermoelectric cooling.