A theoretical treatment of the subband population in the intersubband staircase laser

Author

Kleinert, Peter ; Bryksin, Valerij V.

Author_Institution

Paul-Drude-Inst. for Solid State Electron., Berlin, Germany

Volume

39

Issue

1

fYear

2003

fDate

1/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

130

Lastpage

134

Abstract

A theoretical study of the subband occupation in an intersubband staircase laser has been performed within the density-matrix approach by applying a canonical transformation to a tight-binding model of a superlattice with four quantum wells per unit cell. The field-induced carrier redistribution in a superlattice structure is investigated, for which recently mid-infrared laser operation has been demonstrated. An intrinsic population inversion occurs, which is due to resonant tunneling.

Keywords

Stark effect; Wannier functions; laser theory; population inversion; quantum cascade lasers; resonant tunnelling; semiconductor superlattices; tight-binding calculations; Stark ladder regime; Wannier-Stark quantization; canonical transformation; density-matrix approach; field-induced carrier redistribution; intersubband staircase laser; intrinsic population inversion; mid-infrared laser operation; quantum wells; quantum-cascade laser; resonant tunneling; subband occupation; subband population; superlattice; tight-binding model; unipolar semiconductor lasers; Chemical lasers; Electrons; Equations; Laser modes; Laser theory; Laser transitions; Quantum cascade lasers; Quantum well lasers; Semiconductor lasers; Superlattices;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JQE.2002.806206

Filename

1158814