Electrically tunable, high performance quantum cascade laser

• Published in: Applied physics letters 2010-04, Vol.96 (14), p.141105-141105-3
• Main Authors: Bismuto, A., Terazzi, R, Beck, M., Faist, Jerome
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118
• DOI: 10.1063/1.3377008

A quantum cascade laser design for wide voltage-tuning, emitting at ∼ 8.5   μ m , is presented based on a diagonal bound-to-continuum design. The relatively short period length and the diagonal nature of the laser transition guarantees a wide tuning of the emission due to the linear Stark shift effect. Tuning of both the spontaneous and stimulated emission is presented over almost 100   cm − 1 . In spite of the large tuning, laser performance are comparable with the best results present in literature in this spectral range. In particular, continuous wave operation up to 450 mW and pulsed wall plug efficiencies up to 11.5% were measured at 300 K. A transport model, based on the density matrix formalism, was used to simulate spontaneous and stimulated emission as function of the applied field. Same model was also used to predict light-current-voltage characteristics of the lasers.