Reverse-Taper Mid-Infrared Quantum Cascade Lasers for Coherent Power Scaling

• We present a reverse-taper quantum cascade laser (QCL) emitting at 4.6 mu m, a novel-geometry device that can scale the output power while maintaining good beam quality. Buried-ridge waveguides with tapered and straight regions were formed by ICP etching and HVPE regrowth - the tapered region scales the output power, while the emitting facet is located at the narrow-end taper section, which provides mode filtering by suppressing high-order spatial modes. Beam profiles were observed under quasi-continuous-wave (QCW)/CW operation and beam quality (M-2) measurements along with beam-stability measurements were performed - a small degree of collimated-beam centroid movement (<0.46 mrad, peak-to-peak) was observed, along with M-2 values close to 1 up to similar to 1 W QCW power. Devices of shorter cavity lengths were also investigated, indicating that the output power scales with the core-region volume but results in a small increase in angular deviation.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Atom- och molekylfysik och optik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Licenses

Quantum cascade lasers

beam steering

semiconductor growth

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)