Photodetectors convert light into electrical signals and are at the heart of any optical link. In silicon photonics, traditionally germanium (Ge) [1,2] or III-V compound semiconductors [3,4] are used for photodetection and both technologies have reached a high level of maturity. Nevertheless, the direct monolithic integration of III-V photodetectors on Si wafers remains a challenge because of the large lattice constant mismatch and different thermal coefficients. Ge can be directly grown on crystalline Si, but pushing the bandwidth of Ge photodetectors to higher and higher frequencies [5,6,7] becomes increasingly difficult because of the material's poor electrical quality. One of the most promising routes to a new era of chip performance is the monolithic 3D integration of electronic and photonic components on the same chip, where a promising material for the photonic layers is SiN [8]. On these amorphous SiN layers, crystalline Ge (the prerequisite for realizing high

Broadband coherent light sources are becoming increasingly important for sensing and spectroscopic applications, especially in the mid-infrared and terahertz (THz) spectral regions, where the unique absorption characteristics of a whole host of molecules are located. The desire to miniaturize such light emitters has recently lead to spectacular advances with compact on-chip lasers that cover both of these spectral regions. The long wavelength and the small size of the sources result in a strongly diverging laser beam that is difficult to focus on the target that one aims to perform spectroscopy with. Here, we introduce an unconventional solution to this vexing problem relying on a random laser to produce coherent broadband THz radiation as well as an almost diffraction limited far-field emission profile. Our random lasers do not require any fine-tuning and thus constitute a promising example of practical device applications for random lasing.Various spectroscopic techniques rely on the specific absorption features of numerous molecules within the midinfrared and terahertz (THz) spectral regions, which allow their unambiguous identification. Although broadband coherent sources of radiation are already available within these frequency regions [1][2][3][4][5], a compact size and electrically pumped operation are additionally desired for actual applications. These criteria are fulfilled by quantum cascade lasers (QCLs), semiconductor sources which are able to provide broadband emission at mid-infrared [6,7] and THz [8,9] frequencies. However, for typically used THz QCL waveguides the output aperture is on the order of 10 µm, while the emission wavelength is about 100 µm. This, in fact, leads to a very divergent output beam, which is additionally distorted by interference effects [10,11]. Since external optical elements such as lenses or antennas are difficult to handle on a large scale [12,13], several monolithic concepts have been pursued to address this issue. To improve the far-field for facet emission, e.g., a 3rd order distributed feedback (DFB) grating can be used [14]. Another approach is to coherently emit from a large area on the laser surface. In contrast to interband semiconductor lasers, QCLs can only generate in-plane radiation due to intersubband selection rules, preventing the realization of VCSELtype resonators. Thus several concepts have been developed to couple out the in-plane cavity mode in vertical direction, including 2nd order DFB gratings [15,16] , and photonic crystal (PhC) cavities [17]. Recently, also non-periodic resonator structures such as graded photonic heterostructures [18], or quasicrystal cavities [19,20] have been developed. However, all on-chip techniques providing surface emission demonstrated so far are designed to support a single laser mode only, while for many spectroscopic applications a broadband coherent light source is necessary. To achieve the objective of a broadband and at the same time very collimated laser light emission in the THz regime, we propose here a radical ...

We increased the active region/waveguide thickness of terahertz quantum cascade lasers with semi-insulating surface plasmon waveguides by stacking two symmetric active regions on top of each other, via a direct wafer bonding technique. In this way, we enhance the generated optical power in the cavity and the mode confinement. We achieved 470 mW peak output power in pulsed mode from a single facet at a heat sink temperature of 5 K and a maximum operation temperature of 122 K. Furthermore, the devices show a broad band emission spectrum over a range of 420 GHz, centered around 3.9 THz.

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We demonstrate terahertz lasing emission from a quantum cascade structure, realized with InAs/AlAs0.16Sb0.84 heterostructures. Due to the lower effective electron mass, InAs based active regions are expected to provide a higher optical gain compared to structures consisting of GaAs or InGaAs. The growth by molecular beam epitaxy enabled the fabrication of monolayer-thick barriers, required for the active region, which is based on a 3-well resonant phonon depletion design. Devices were processed in a double-metal waveguide geometry to ensure high mode confinement and low optical losses. Lasing emission at 3.8 THz was observed at liquid helium temperatures by applying a magnetic field perpendicular to the layered structure in order to suppress parasitic scattering channels. These results demonstrate the feasibility of InAs based active regions for terahertz quantum cascade lasers, potentially enabling higher operating temperatures.