Submillimeter quantum cascade laser in the GaAs/AlGaAs system

Vinod M. Menon; W. D. Goodhue; Aram S. Karakashian

doi:10.1117/12.327998

26 October 1998 Submillimeter quantum cascade laser in the GaAs/AlGaAs system

Vinod M. Menon, W. D. Goodhue, Aram S. Karakashian

Proceedings Volume 3436, Infrared Technology and Applications XXIV; (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.327998
Event: SPIE's International Symposium on Optical Science, Engineering, and Instrumentation, 1998, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

We propose to develop a submillimeter quantum cascade laser in the GaAs/AlGaAs material system. This device relies on intersubband transitions in GaAs quantum wells of the device for lasing. Preliminary calculations show that there is sufficient gain to produce lasing in the wavelength range 80 to 125 micrometer. The active region of the laser structure consists of coupled quantum wells which can be grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The model uses a 30 nm-wide active quantum well which contains two levels separated by 14.8 meV which corresponds to a wavelength of 83.5 micrometer at a bias of 8850 V/cm with 12.2 nm and 29.8 nm wide quantum well energy filters inserted on either side of the active well. The energy filters are designed to allow only electrons with the energy of the upper state to be injected into the active well and only electrons with the energy of the lower state to be extracted from the active well. The proposed device uses a 10-period injector/active well/collector structure. The collector/injector is a superlattice region, which acts as a reservoir for the electrons. The gain of this system has been calculated to be approximately 2500 cm^-1. Threshold current density has been calculated to be about 622 A/cm² at 77 K.

Citation Download Citation

Vinod M. Menon, W. D. Goodhue, and Aram S. Karakashian "Submillimeter quantum cascade laser in the GaAs/AlGaAs system", Proc. SPIE 3436, Infrared Technology and Applications XXIV, (26 October 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.327998

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