New frontiers in InP based quantum devices

Recent research activities taking place at center for quantum devices (CQD) based on InP material system, especially the exploration and demonstration of the state-of-art high performance quantum cascade lasers (QCL), greatly facilitate the understanding of the underlining physical principles governing the device operation. Thanks to the endless effort putting into the semiconductor epitaxy technologies, including the Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) and low pressure metal organic chemical vapor deposition (LP-MOCVD), the world has seen a close approaching to the ultimate ldquoband gap engineeringrdquo. Highly sophisticated manmade heterostructure, which incorporates hundreds of alternating layers of GaInAs/AlInAs with each layer thickness and composition specifically designed, can be created within a single growth. The material quality is evidenced by the atomically abrupt interfaces. The versatility of the ldquoband gap engineeringrdquo is greatly enhanced by the strain-balanced technique, which allows for growing structures with continuously tunable conduction band offset with little defects. As a result, the room temperature continuous wave (cw) wall plug efficiency (WPE) and the maximum achievable output optical power from a single device have been constantly improving. Novel waveguide incorporating the photonic crystal distributed feedback (PCDFB) mechanism is also investigated with satisfactory preliminary results.