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Title: Two-well terahertz quantum cascade lasers with suppressed carrier leakage

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4996567 · OSTI ID:1399568
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [2];  [3]
  1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Bar-Ilan Univ., Ramat Gan (Israel)
  2. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  3. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

The mechanisms that limit the temperature performance of diagonal GaAs/Al0.15GaAs0.85-based terahertz quantum cascade lasers (THz-QCLs) have been identified as thermally activated leakage of charge carriers through excited states into the continuum. THz-QCLs with energetically higher-laying excited states supported by sufficiently high barriers aim to eliminate these leakage mechanisms and lead to improved temperature performance. Although suppression of thermally activated carrier leakage was realized in a three-well THz-QCL based on a resonant-phonon scheme, no improvement in the temperature performance was reported thus far. Here, we report a major improvement in the temperature performance of a two-quantum-well direct-phonon THz-QCL structure. We show that the improved laser performance is due to the suppression of the thermally activated carrier leakage into the continuum with the increase in the injection barrier height. Furthermore, we demonstrate that high-barrier two-well structures can support a clean three-level laser system at elevated temperatures, which opens the opportunity to achieve temperature performance beyond the state-of-the-art.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC04-94AL85000
OSTI ID:
1399568
Report Number(s):
SAND--2017-8933J; 656406
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 111; ISSN 0003-6951
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (6)

Thermoelectrically cooled THz quantum cascade laser operating up to 210 K text January 2019
Thermoelectrically cooled THz quantum cascade laser operating up to 210 K journal July 2019
Terahertz quantum cascade laser with non-resonant extraction journal May 2019
Split-well direct-phonon terahertz quantum cascade lasers journal May 2019
Barrier Height Tuning of Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers for High-Temperature Operation journal October 2018
Thermoelectrically cooled THz quantum cascade laser operating up to 210 K text January 2019