Monolithic beam combined quantum cascade laser arrays with integrated arrayed waveguide gratings.

Quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) are ubiquitous mid-infrared sources owing to their flexible designs and compact footprints. Manufacturing multiwavelength QCL chips with high power levels and good beam quality is highly desirable for many applications. In this study, we demonstrate an λ ∼ 4.9 µm monolithic, wavelength beam-combined (WBC) infrared laser source by integrating on a single chip array of five QCL gain sections with an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). Optical feedback from the cleaved facets enables lasing, whereas the integrated AWG locks the emission spectrum of each gain section to its corresponding input channel wavelength and spatially combines their signals into a single-output waveguide. Our chip features high peak power from the common aperture exceeding 0.6 W for each input channel, with a side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of over 27 dB when operated in pulsed mode. Our active/passive integration approach allows for a seamless transition from the QCL ridges to the AWG without requiring regrowth or evanescent coupling schemes, leading to a robust design. These results pave the way for the development of highly compact mid-IR sources suitable for applications such as hyperspectral imaging.

High-efficiency mid-infrared InGaAs/InP arrayed waveguide gratings.

Photonic integrated circuits and mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers have attracted significant attention over the years because of the numerous applications enabled by these compact semiconductor chips. In this paper, we demonstrate low loss passive waveguides and highly efficient arrayed waveguide gratings that can be used, for example, to beam combine infrared (IR) laser arrays. The waveguide structure used consists of an In0.53Ga0.47As core and InP cladding layers. This material system was chosen because of its compatibility with future monolithic integration with quantum cascade lasers. Different photonic circuits were fabricated using standard semiconductor processes, and experiments conducted with these chips demonstrated low-loss waveguides with an estimated propagation loss of ∼ 1.2 dB/cm as well as micro-ring resonators with an intrinsic Q-factor of 174,000. Arrayed waveguide gratings operating in the 5.15-5.34 µm range feature low insertion loss and non-uniformity of ∼ 0.9 dB and ∼ 0.6 dB, respectively. The demonstration of the present photonic circuits paves the path toward monolithic fabrication of compact infrared light sources with advanced functionalities beneficial to many chemical sensing and high-power applications.

Low-dissipation 7.4-µm single-mode quantum cascade lasers without epitaxial regrowth.

We report continuous-wave operation of single-mode quantum cascade (QC) lasers emitting near 7.4 µm with threshold power consumption below 1 W at temperatures up to 40 °C. The lasers were fabricated with narrow, plasma-etched waveguides and distributed-feedback sidewall gratings clad with sputtered aluminum nitride. In contrast to conventional buried-heterostructure (BH) devices with epitaxial sidewall cladding and in-plane gratings, the devices described here were fabricated without any epitaxial regrowth processes, yet they exhibit power consumption comparable to the lowest-dissipation BH QC lasers reported to date. These low-dissipation devices are designed primarily as light sources for infrared spectroscopy instruments with limited volume, mass, and power budgets.

Widely tunable mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers using sampled grating reflectors.

We demonstrate a three-section, electrically pulsed quantum cascade laser which consists of a Fabry-Pérot section placed between two sampled grating distributed Bragg reflectors. The device is current-tuned between ten single modes spanning a range of 0.46 µm (63 cm(-1)), from 8.32 to 8.78 µm. The peak optical output power exceeds 280 mW for nine of the modes.

Quantum cascade laser master-oscillator power-amplifier with 1.5 W output power at 300 K.

We report quantum cascade laser (QCL) master-oscillator power-amplifiers (MOPAs) at 300 K reaching output power of 1.5 W for tapered devices and 0.9 W for untapered devices. The devices display single-longitudinal-mode emission at λ = 7.26 µm and single-transverse-mode emission at TM(00). The maximum amplification factor is 12 dB for the tapered devices.

Whispering-gallery mode resonators for highly unidirectional laser action.

Optical microcavities can be designed to take advantage of total internal reflection, which results in resonators supporting whispering-gallery modes (WGMs) with a high-quality factor (Q factor). One of the crucial problems of these devices for practical applications such as designing microcavity lasers, however, is that their emission is nondirectional due to their radial symmetry, in addition to their inefficient power output coupling. Here we report the design of elliptical resonators with a wavelength-size notch at the boundary, which support in-plane highly unidirectional laser emission from WGMs. The notch acts as a small scatterer such that the Q factor of the WGMs is still very high. Using midinfrared (λ ∼ 10 µm) injection quantum cascade lasers as a model system, an in-plane beam divergence as small as 6 deg with a peak optical power of ∼5 mW at room temperature has been demonstrated. The beam divergence is insensitive to the pumping current and to the notch geometry, demonstrating the robustness of this resonator design. The latter is scalable to the visible and the near infrared, thus opening the door to very low-threshold, highly unidirectional microcavity diode lasers.

Gain competition in dual wavelength quantum cascade lasers.

We investigated dual wavelength mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers based on heterogeneous cascades. We found that due to gain competition laser action tends to start in higher order lateral modes. The mid-infrared mode with the lower threshold current reduces population inversion for the second laser with the higher threshold current due to stimulated emission. We developed a rate equation model to quantitatively describe mode interactions due to mutual gain depletion.

Activation energy study of electron transport in high performance short wavelengths quantum cascade lasers.

We present a method to study current paths through quantum cascade lasers (QCLs). The temperature dependence of the current is measured at a fixed voltage. At low temperatures we find activation energies that correspond to the energy difference between the injector ground state and the upper laser level. At higher temperatures additional paths with larger activation energies are found. Application of this method to high performance QCLs based on strained InGaAs/InAlAs quantum wells and barriers with different band-offsets allows us to identify individual parasitic current paths through the devices. The results give insight into the transport properties of quantum cascade lasers thus providing a useful tool for device optimization.

Beam combining of quantum cascade laser arrays.

Wavelength beam combining was used to co-propagate beams from 28 elements in an array of distributed-feedback quantum cascade lasers (DFB-QCLs). The beam-quality product of the array, defined as the product of near-field spot size and far-field divergence for the entire array, was improved by a factor of 21 by using wavelength beam combining. To demonstrate the applicability of wavelength beam combined DFB-QCL arrays for remote sensing, we obtained the absorption spectrum of isopropanol at a distance of 6 m from the laser array.

Quantum cascade lasers with integrated plasmonic antenna-array collimators.

We demonstrated in simulations and experiments that by defining a properly designed two-dimensional metallic aperture-grating structure on the facet of quantum cascade lasers, a small beam divergence angle can be achieved in directions both perpendicular and parallel to the laser waveguide layers (denoted as theta perpendicular and theta parallel, respectively). Beam divergence angles as small as theta perpendicular=2.7 degrees and theta parallel=3.7 degrees have been demonstrated. This is a reduction by a factor of approximately 30 and approximately 10, respectively, compared to those of the original lasers emitting at a wavelength of 8.06 microm. The devices preserve good room temperature performance with output power as high as approximately 55% of that of the original unpatterned lasers. We studied in detail the trade-off between beam divergence and power throughput for the fabricated devices. We demonstrated plasmonic collimation for buried heterostructure lasers and ridge lasers; devices with different waveguide structures but with the same plasmonic collimator design showed similar performance. We also studied a device patterned with a "spider's web" pattern, which gives us insight into the distribution of surface plasmons on the laser facet.

Intra-cavity absorption spectroscopy with narrow-ridge microfluidic quantum cascade lasers.

We demonstrate microfluidic laser intra-cavity absorption spectroscopy with mid-infrared lambda approximately 9mum quantum cascade lasers. A deepetched narrow ridge waveguide laser is placed in a microfluidic chamber. The evanescent tails of the laser mode penetrate into a liquid on both sides of the ridge. The absorption lines of the liquid modify the laser waveguide loss, resulting in significant changes in the laser emission spectrum and the threshold current. A volume of liquid as small as ~10pL may, in principle, be sufficient for sensing using the proposed technique. This method, similar to the related gas-phase technique, shows promise as a sensitive means of detecting chemicals in small volumes of solutions.

Near-field imaging of quantum cascade laser transverse modes.

We report near field imaging of the transverse lasing modes of quantum cascade lasers. A mid-infrared apertureless near-field scanning optical microscope was used to characterize the modes on the laser facet. A very stable mode pattern corresponding to a TM(00) mode was observed as function of increasing driving current for a narrow active region quantum cascade laser. Higher order modes were observed for devices with a larger active region width-to-wavelength ratio operated in pulsed mode close to threshold. A theoretical model is proposed to explain why specific transverse modes are preferred close to threshold. The model is in good agreement with the experimental results.