A broadly tunable THz nonlinear QCLs with enhanced conversion efficiency by employing a homogeneous active region is demonstrated. Using an external cavity configuration, the device has achieved tunability from 1.2 THz to 4.5 THz in the operating frequency range. The single dual-upper-state structure with wide gain bandwidth and a high nonlinear susceptibility χ2 enables to realize two-wavelength oscillations without stacking active regions and significantly improves the mid-infrared to THz conversion efficiency, resulting in superior performance over previously reported frequency tunable devices. The device has achieved a conversion efficiency of ~3 mW/W2 around 3.5 THz. In the presentation, spectroscopic measurements using this device will also be reported.
We present a tunable nonlinear QCL structure that uses an external-cavity lens-coupled Cherenkov waveguide, where a silicon lens is closely coupled to the device substrate to provide greatly enhanced THz coupling efficiency and considerable performance enhancements over existing devices. A source operating at room temperature outputs a peak power of 0.2 mW at 1.5 THz. Additionally, device tuning over an operating frequency range from 420 GHz up to 2 THz was demonstrated. The operating frequency of 420 GHz is the lowest reported operating frequency for room-temperature QCL sources.
Terahertz quantum cascade laser sources with intra-cavity difference frequency generation are currently the only electrically-pumped monolithic semiconductor light sources operating at room temperature in the 1-6 THz spectral range. These devices demonstrated drastic improvements in performance in the past several years and can produce broadband and narrow-linewidth single-mode terahertz emission with power output sufficient for spectroscopic applications. Recent efforts in the wavefunction engineering using an active region design based on a dual-upper-state concept led to a significant enhancement of the optical nonlinearity of the active region for efficient terahertz generation. Dual-upper-state terahertz quantum cascade laser sources exhibit the power of >0.3 mW. Here, we report low frequency generation from terahertz quantum cascade laser sources based on intra-cavity nonlinear frequency mixing. In order to achieve higher nonlinear susceptibility in low frequency region, we design a long wavelength dual-upper-state active region in which transition dipole moments are increased. A fabricated device with distributed feedback grating demonstrates a THz peak output power of 40 μW at room temperature, with multi-mode THz emission at a frequency of 1.4 THz. Besides, a device produces THz output power of >250 μW at 110 K, which is higher output power, compared to low- frequency THz-QCLs at liquid helium temperature.
Since the first demonstration of quantum-cascade lasers (QCLs) in 1994, remarkable progress has been made from the mid-infrared (mid-IR) to terahertz (THz) spectral range. The 1–6 THz spectral range is very attractive for many applications, such as imaging, chem-/bio-sensing, heterodyne detection, and spectroscopy. However, this spectral range still lacks high-performance compact continuous-wave (CW) light sources operable at room temperature. Recently, THz sources based on intracavity difference-frequency generation (DFG) in dual-wavelength mid-IR QCLs have been demonstrated. These devices, known as THz DFG-QCLs, have their active region engineered to exhibit giant intersubband nonlinear susceptibility χ(2) for THz DFG. Recently, we developed THz DFG-QCLs containing an homogeneous active region with dual-upper states (DAU), which exhibit a THz output power of 301 μW with a high mid-IR-to-THz conversion efficiency of 1.2 mW/W2. The DAU active region approach provides a broadband gain bandwidth, and as a result, two wavelength emissions can be obtained without a heterogeneous cascade that has been used previously; this leads to a low threshold current density compared with that obtained from the use of a heterogeneous active region. Here, we present a low threshold THz DFG-QCL based on a λ~6.8 μm DAU active region. The λ~6.8 μm DAU-QCLs have exhibited very low threshold current density as well as broad gain bandwidth. By applying the λ~6.8 μm DAU design approach, the device demonstrates room temperature CW operation without an epidown mounting scheme, where a threshold current density for THz emission has been shown to be low, at 1.3 kA/cm2. Besides, ultra-broadband emission covering 1.6–3.5 THz has been obtained in CW mode below 200 K.
We discuss novel approaches to improve the tuning bandwidth and power output of terahertz (THz) sources based on difference-frequency generation (DFG) in mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers (QCLs). Using a double Littrow external-cavity system, we experimentally demonstrate that both doubly-resonant terms and optical rectification terms in the expression for the intersubband optical nonlinearity contribute to THz generation in DFG-QCLs and report THz DFG-QCLs with the optimized optical rectification terms. We also demonstrate a hybrid DFG-QCL device on silicon that enables significant improvement on THz out-coupling efficiency and results in more than 5 times higher THz output power compared to that of a reference device on its native semi-insulating InP substrate. Finally, we report for the first time the THz emission linewidth of a free-running continuous-wave THz DFG-QCL.
A high photoresponse in a room-temperature quantum cascade detector (QCD) based on a coupled quantum-well design is demonstrated with a peak detection wavelength of 5.4 μm. In this design, forward electron transfer is engineered to be five times as large as relaxation back to ground level. In this situation, the coupled quantum-well QCD indicates a high responsivity of 22 mA/W as well as a specified detectivity (D*) of 8.0×107 cmW-1Hz1/2, both at room-temperature with commonly used 45° wedge configuration. Applying a waveguide configuration for the proposed QCD, an elevated responsivity of ~130 mA/W with a D* of 1.1×108 cmW-1Hz1/2 was obtained at room-temperature. A laser absorption spectroscopy for N2O gas with proposed QCD and a distributed feedback quantum cascade laser has been also demonstrated.
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