Interband cascade lasers

Jerry R Meyer; C L Canedy; C S Kim; M Kim; W W Bewley; C D Merritt; I Vurgaftman

doi:10.4172/2469-410X.C1.009

Interband cascade lasers

5^th International Conference and Exhibition on Lasers, Optics & Photonics

November 28-30, 2016 Atlanta, USA

Jerry R Meyer, C L Canedy, C S Kim, M Kim, W W Bewley and C D Merritt and I Vurgaftman

Naval Research Laboratory, USA
Sotera Defense Solutions, Inc., USA

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Laser Opt Photonics

Abstract :

It was long believed that interband mid-IR (�?»=3-6 �?¼m) diode lasers must inevitably perform poorly because the Auger nonradiative decay rate scales exponentially with wavelength while the internal loss scales as �?»2-�?»3. However, in 2008 an interband cascade laser (ICL) operated in continuous wave (cw) mode at room temperature (RT). By exploiting a semi-metallic interface that under bias provides an internal source of non-equilibrium electrons and holes, ICLs combine the conduction-to-valence band optical transitions of a conventional diode laser with the multiple active stages of a quantum cascade laser (QCL). Both electrons and holes are present in each stage of the ICLâ�?�?s active region, even though the contacts inject and remove only electrons. The ICL is especially advantageous in applications requiring low (e.g., â�?¤ 20 mW) single-mode output power at any wavelength in the �?» â�?�? 3-6 �?¼m range, since itâ�?�?s extremely low threshold power requirement (29 mW reported) is ideal for small-footprint spectroscopic sensing systems driven by battery or solar power. Advances since 2008 include maximum cw operating temperature up to 118 �?ºC, pulsed threshold current density as low as 100-130 A/cm2, and RT cw operation to wavelengths as long as 5.7�?¼m. When the number of stages was increased from 5 to 10, narrow ridge ICLs mounted epitaxial side down with HR/AR coatings on the back/front facets emitted RT cw powers up to 500 mW. Shorter cavities displayed wallplug efficiencies up to 18%. We also report interband cascade vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (ICVCSELs) that emit in pulsed mode at �?»= 3.4 �?¼m, with threshold current densities as low as 390 A/cm2 at T = 25 �?°C and operation up to 70 �?°C.