Cavity Length Scaling of Quantum Cascade Lasers for Single-Mode Emission and Low Heat Dissipation, Room Temperature, Continuous Wave Operation

Author

Cendejas, Richard A. ; Liu, Zhijun ; Sánchez-Vaynshteyn, Wendy ; Caneau, Catherine G. ; Zah, Chung-en ; Gmachl, Claire

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ, USA

Volume

3

Issue

1

fYear

2011

Firstpage

71

Lastpage

81

Abstract

Single-mode operation of Fabry-Perot quantum cascade (QC) lasers is achieved through the systematic shortening of the cavity length from 764 to 110 μm. The increased mirror loss is mitigated using highly reflective (HR) metallic facet coatings (R >; 95%). Ultrashort cavity QC lasers operate single mode with the best device having a mode-hop free current tuning range of 3.44 cm^-1. Using combined heat-sink temperature and current tuning, the largest single-mode tuning range attained was 8.56 cm^-1. The heat dissipation of a 110-μm ultrashort cavity QC laser is 0.23 W at 80 K and 0.43 W at 150 K. With a 500-μm cavity and both facets HR coated with reflectivities of ~95% and 75%, room-temperature continuous wave operation is realized with heat dissipation of 1.2-1.7 W.

Keywords

high-speed optical techniques; laser cavity resonators; laser mirrors; laser tuning; optical design techniques; quantum cascade lasers; Fabry-Perot quantum cascade lasers; cavity length scaling; continuous wave operation; current tuning; heat sink temperature; highly reflective metallic facet coatings; low heat dissipation; mirror loss; power 0.23 W; power 0.43 W; power 1.2 W to 1.7 W; single mode emission; single mode operation; single-mode tuning; temperature 150 K; temperature 293 K to 298 K; temperature 80 K; ultrashort cavity QC lasers; wavelength 110 mum; wavelength 500 mum; Cavity resonators; Doping; Gain; Laser modes; Quantum cascade lasers; Tuning; Waveguide lasers; Optical resonators; quantum cascade lasers; single-mode operation;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Journal, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1943-0655

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JPHOT.2010.2103376

Filename

5680570