Title :
External cavity tunable type-I diode laser with continuous-wave singlemode operation at 3.24μm
Author :
Gupta, J.A. ; Ventrudo, B.F. ; Waldron, Peter ; Barrios, P.J.
Author_Institution :
Inst. for Microstruct. Sci., Nat. Res. Council of Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Abstract :
A tunable external cavity laser (ECL) near 3.24 m was developed using semiconductor laser gain chips based on GaSb. The type-1 interband laser diodes were grown by molecular beam epitaxy using 17 nm InGaAsSb compressively-strained quantum wells with 30 nm AlInGaAsSb quinary barriers for improved hole confinement. In continuous-wave operation with a diode temperature of 10 C, the ECLs produce up to 1.8 mW of singlemode output power with a tuning range of 60 nm. The devices are tunable through the fundamental 3 vibrational absorption features of methane gas, providing a platform for highly-sensitive detection of trace hydrocarbons.
Keywords :
aluminium compounds; indium compounds; laser cavity resonators; laser modes; laser tuning; molecular beam epitaxial growth; quantum well lasers; semiconductor quantum wells; compressively-strained quantum wells; continuous-wave singlemode operation; diode temperature; external cavity tunable type-I diode laser; hole confinement; methane gas; molecular beam epitaxy; semiconductor laser gain chips; singlemode output power; temperature 10 degC; trace hydrocarbons detection; vibrational absorption; wavelength 3.24 mum;
Journal_Title :
Electronics Letters
DOI :
10.1049/el.2010.1790
