Modelling of temperature effects on the characteristics of mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers

The effect of temperature on the characteristics of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum cascade lasers operating in the mid-infrared range is theoretically investigated and compared with reported experimental results. We have included the dependence of the phonon scattering rate, linewidth variations and thermionic lifetime on temperature. It is found that the characteristics depend strongly on temperature. Our model yields threshold current densities in good agreement with the experiments. The effect of injection efficiency on the unsaturated modal gain is also considered.     

Very low threshold operation of quantum cascade lasers

A strain-compensated InP-based quantum cascade laser(QCL) structure emitting at 4.6 μm is demonstrated,based on a two-phonon resonant design and grown by solid-source molecular beam epitaxy(MBE).By optimizing the growth parameters,a very high quality heterostructure with the lowest threshold current densities ever reported for QCLs was fabricated.Threshold current densities as low as 0.47 kA/cm~2 in pulsed operation and 0.56 kA/cm~2 in continuous-wave(cw) operation at 293 K were achieved for this state-of-the-art QCL.A minimum power consumption of 3.65 W was measured for the QCL,uncooled,with a high-reflectivity(HR) coating on its rear facet.     

Passive synthesis rules of coupled-cavity quantum cascade lasers

A new approach to passive electromagnetic modelling of coupled–cavity quantum cascade lasers is presented in this paper. One of challenges in the rigorous analysis of such eigenvalue problem is its large size as compared to wavelength and a high quality factor, which prompts for substantial computational efforts. For those reasons, it is proposed in this paper to consider such a coupled-cavity Fabry-Perot resonant structure with partially transparent mirrors as a two-port network, which can be considered as a deterministic problem. Thanks to such a novel approach, passive analysis of an electrically long laser can be split into a cascade of relatively short sections having low quality factor, thus, substantially speeding up rigorous electromagnetic analysis of the whole quantum cascade laser. The proposed method allows to determine unequivocally resonant frequencies of the structure and the corresponding spectrum of a threshold gain. Eventually, the proposed method is used to elaborate basic synthesis rules of coupled–cavity quantum cascade lasers.     

Synchronization of quantum cascade lasers with mutual optoelectronic coupling

In this study, the operating conditions to obtain complete synchronization in two quantum cascade lasers with mutual optoelectronic coupling are analyzed. Synchronization properties and the effect of parameter mismatches on synchronization quality are investigated. The present simulation shows that the complete synchronization can be realized under suitable system parameters. The results of the present simulation indicate that the significant effects of coupling strength, photon lifetime and gain stages number on the synchronization quality. On the other hand, the present results indicate that the insignificant effect of the feedback delay time, the coupling delay time and the synchronization can occur at any delay-time conditions (DTCs).     

Theoretical estimates of optimal parameters for quantum cascade lasers

The quantum cascade (QC) laser is a new light source which is based on one type of carrier (electrons) making transitions between energy levels created by quantum confinement. In this paper, focusing on the working conditions which a QC laser should satisfy, we have discussed the subband lifespans in QC laser active regions. The results show that the population inversion condition can be achieved by resonant tunneling associated with an optical phonon, and this population inversion can be facilitated by the short escaping time of electrons from one active region to the neighboring active region. Our calculations also show that the lifespans of levels 3 and 2 are dominated by the phonon scattering time, and the escaping time from one active region to the next active region is determined by the thickness of exit barrier and the proper design of the miniband between the active regions.     

Quasi-continuous-wave operation of AlGaAs/GaAs quantum cascade lasers

Quasi-continuous-wave operation of AlGaAs/GaAs-based quantum cascade lasers (λ9 μm) up to 165 K is reported. The strong temperature dependence of the threshold current density and its higher value in high duty cycle is investigated in detail. The self-heating effect in the active region is explored by changing the operating duty cycles. The degradation of lasing performance with temperature is explained.     

External-cavity beam combining of 4-channel quantum cascade lasers

We demonstrate an external-cavity (EC) beam combining of 4-channel quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) with an output coupler which makes different QCL beams propagating coaxially. A beam combining efficiency of 35% (up to 75% near threshold) is obtained with a beam quality M² of 5.5. A peak power of 0.64 W is achieved at a wavelength of 4.7 μm. The differences of spot characteristic between coupled and uncoupled are also showed in this letter. The QCLs in this EC system do not have heat crosstalk so that the system can be used for high power beam combining of QCLs.     

ZnO-based terahertz quantum cascade lasers

High-power terahertz sources operating at room-temperature are promising for many applications such as explosive materials detection, non-invasive medical imaging, and high speed telecommunication. Here we report the results of a simulation study, which shows the significantly improved performance of room-temperature terahertz quantum cascade lasers (THz QCLs) based on a ZnMgO/ZnO material system employing a 2-well design scheme with variable barrier heights and a delta-doped injector well. We found that by varying and optimizing constituent layer widths and doping level of the injector well, high power performance of THz QCLs can be achieved at room temperature: optical gain and radiation frequency is varied from 108 cm^?1 @ 2.18 THz to 300 cm^?1 @ 4.96 THz. These results show that among II–VI compounds the ZnMgO/ZnO material system is optimally suited for high-performance room-temperature THz QCLs.     

三能级光纤激光器速率方程组的阈值解析解

 在考虑了泵浦损耗及激光损耗的情况下,解析求解了阈值泵浦下的三能级光纤激光器速率方程组,获得了泵浦功率阈值的显函数解析表达式,泵浦功率沿光纤变化的隐函数表达式,以及用功率变化表示的各个能级的粒子数密度随位置变化的显函数表达式。并利用这些表达式对光纤激光器的阈值特性进行了研究,研究表明：泵浦功率阈值随泵浦损耗系数增大而增大;激光上能级粒子数密度随归一化位置呈下降趋势,而下能级粒子数密度的变化与此相反;泵浦功率阈值越大(光纤长度越长),净增益系数随归一位置下降就越快。所获得的结果适用于单包层和双包层光纤激光器。     

Potential‐inserted quantum well design for quantum cascade terahertz lasers

We report on a new design of terahertz quantum cascade laser based on a single, potential‐inserted quantum well active region. The quantum well properties are engineered through single monolayer InAs inserts. The modeling is based on atomistic, spds* tight‐binding calculations, and performances are compared to that of the classical three‐well design. We obtain a 100% increase of the oscillator strength per unit length, while maintaining a high, nearly temperature‐independent contrast between phonon‐induced relaxation times of the upper and lower lasing states. The improved performances are expected to allow THz lasing at room temperature.     

Analytical solutions to rate equations including losses describing threshold pumped fiber lasers

An exact analytical expression to the threshold pump power has been deduced for rate equations including loss coefficients applicable to fiber lasers doped with quasi two-energy-level ions. Following the derivation of a closed-form expression for the variation of the pump power along the fiber, together with analytical solutions to the position dependent atom population density and laser power in terms of the pump power, we have analytically and fully solved rate equations describing threshold pumped fiber lasers. A comparison has also been made between the exact analytical result with the previous reported results, which indicates that various approximation have underestimated the threshold pump powers.     

Self-consistently determining mean field used in rate equations of semiconductor lasers

An analytical expression for the mean field has been derived from the traveling wave rate equations in terms of the geometric mean of the counter-propagating fields inside the cavity, and an implicit solution has been obtained for the geometric mean inside the laser. These lead to the establishment of the analytical relation between the mean field inside the cavity and the output field from the diode laser. It is hoped that this relation may provide a common reference for the evaluation of the injection coefficient when studies are made on the injected semiconductor lasers, whose nonlinear dynamic characteristics are critically dependent on the injection coefficient, with rate equations simplified by adopting the mean field approximation.     

准二能级阈值泵浦光纤激光器的理论分析

 根据含损耗系数的稳态速率方程组,对掺准二能级稀土粒子光纤激光器的泵浦阈值进行了分析和完全解析求解。求得了泵浦阈值功率的显函数解析式,得到了泵浦光阈值功率随光纤位置变化的隐函数表达式,以及信号光功率和上能级粒子数随光纤位置变化的解析表达式。对所得的解进行了数值分析,并与已有的理论和实验结果进行了比较分析。结果表明：由于忽略了信号光和泵浦光损耗系数,不同近似条件下给出的泵浦阈值功率均比实验值低,但所导出的理论研究结果与已有实验结果的差异最小。     

First room temperature lasing from the fundamental state of V-grooved quantum wire lasers

Lasing from the ground state electron and heavy-hole-like transition of quantum wire (QWR) is demonstrated for the first time at room temperature, with an oxide-isolated V-grooved GaAs/AlGaAs triple QWR laser grown by flow-rate modulation epitaxy (FME). The lasing peaks at all temperatures (4–300 K) are in reasonably good agreement with both the photon energies of the peaks of the photoluminescence curves and the numerical calculation of the electronic sub-band energy states of the corresponding QWR structure. These results are considered to be responsible for the reduced heterointerface inhomogeneities (the Stokes shift 0.3 meV) of the FME grown QWR, giving a low-loss wave guide in the QWR laser.     

Numerical analysis of stimulated Brillouin scattering in high-power double-clad fiber lasers

A theoretical analysis of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in linear cavity Yb³⁺-doped double-clad fiber lasers is presented by solving the steady-state rate equations with the SBS. The effects of cavity length, fiber core diameter, input mirror reflectivity at Stokes wavelength, Yb³⁺ concentration and laser linewidth on the SBS are discussed. Numerical results show that the SBS threshold power can be improved by shortening the cavity length, using large mode area fiber, reducing the input mirror reflectivity at Stokes wavelength, lowering the Yb³⁺ concentration and broadening the laser linewidth, and the influence of the laser linewidth on the SBS threshold power is more noticeable than other system parameters.     

Numerical analysis of Ytterbium-doped double-clad fiber lasers based on the temperature-dependent rate equation

The effects of temperature on the output power and optimal conditions of Ytterbium-doped double-cladding fiber lasers (YDDFLs) are discussed. Temperature-dependent rate equations for YDDFLs based on Boltzmann distribution are built in two-end pump model. The results show that the output power and the slope efficiency decrease with the increase of temperature. The increase of pump power results in that the effect of the temperature on the output performance increases, and the fiber length is a factor that the effect of the temperature depends on really. Moreover we combine the heat distribution formula with the rate equations and compare the numerical results considering with that not considering the temperature-dependence inside laser cavity, the effect of temperature can be ignored only when the pump power is lower, and the optimal fiber length becomes longer when considering the temperature-dependence.     

Measurements of the linewidth of a continuous-wave distributed feedback quantum cascade laser

Two-sample (Allan) variance with a modified algorithm was applied to the determination of the experimental linewidth of a thermoelectrically-cooled continuous-wave distributed feedback quantum cascade laser at a wavelength of 4.333 μm. From successive laser transmittance scans over the CO₂ ν₃, (01¹1 − 01¹0) P(33) absorption line at 2307.653 cm^− 1, two-sample variances were calculated for the laser frequency difference between different points on the sides of the absorption peak. From the minimum two-sample variance of the laser frequency difference between two adjacent points (5 μs between the points) on the same side of the absorption line the experimental laser linewidth was estimated to be less than 36(7) kHz at a laser power of ~ 25 mW, a laser current of 976 mA and a laser temperature of + 19.5 °C.     

Modelling of optical Kerr effects on the static and dynamic behaviors of quantum cascade laser

The effect of optical Kerr nonlinearity on the static and dynamic behaviors of quantum cascade laser operating in the mid-infrared is theoretically investigated. Our model is based on three-level rate equations including the dependence of the loss on photon number in the cavity. The optical stability domain that allows for the determination of current injection is derived within the premises of our model. The analytical solutions of eigenvalue equation allowing the investigation of stability analysis are obtained. Furthermore, nonlinear effects influence significantly the dynamics of photons in cavity and electrons in the upper laser level.     

Band structures and characteristics of InGaAs/InGaAsP strain-compensated quantum well lasers

Analysis is performed for valence band structures and some characteristics of InGaAs/InGaAsP strain-compensated quantum well lasers lattice-matched to InP substrate. The computed results show that band offsets are functions of strain compensation instead of constants; strain compensation changes the band structures and the density of states, and hence affects the optical gain and the threshold current density. Under the condition of zero net strain, the values of the well width, cavity length and relative threshold carrier density and threshold current density are determined for realization of 1.55 m wavelength emission.