We demonstrate room temperature continuous wave THz sources based on intracavity difference-frequency generation from mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers. Buried ridge, buried composite distributed-feedback waveguide with Čerenkov phase-matching scheme is used to reduce the waveguide loss and enhance the heat dissipation for continuous wave operation. Continuous emission at 3.6 THz with a side-mode suppression ratio of 20 dB and output power up to 3 μW are achieved, respectively. THz peak power is further scaled up to 1.4 mW in pulsed mode by increasing the mid-infrared power through increasing the active region doping and device area.
We demonstrate high power continuous-wave room-temperature operation surface-grating distributed feedback quantum cascade lasers at 4.8 μm. High power single mode operation benefits from a combination of high-reflection and antireflection coatings. Maximum single-facet continuous-wave output power of 2.4 W and peak wall plug efficiency of 10% from one facet is obtained at 298 K. Single mode operation with a side mode suppression ratio of 30 dB and single-lobed far field without beam steering is observed.
A compact, high power, room temperature continuous wave terahertz source emitting in a wide frequency range (ν ~ 1–5 THz) is of great importance to terahertz system development for applications in spectroscopy, communication, sensing, and imaging. Here, we present a strong-coupled strain-balanced quantum cascade laser design for efficient THz generation based on intracavity difference frequency generation. Room temperature continuous wave emission at 3.41 THz with a side-mode suppression ratio of 30 dB and output power up to 14 μW is achieved with a wall-plug efficiency about one order of magnitude higher than previous demonstrations. With this highly efficient design, continuous wave, single mode THz emissions with a wide frequency tuning range of 2.06–4.35 THz and an output power up to 4.2 μW are demonstrated at room temperature from two monolithic three-section sampled grating distributed feedback-distributed Bragg reflector lasers.
A dual-section, single-mode quantum cascade laser is demonstrated in continuous wave at room temperature with up to 114 nm (50 cm−1) of tuning near a wavelength of 4.8 μm. Power above 100 mW is demonstrated, with a mean side mode suppression ratio of 24 dB. By changing the grating period, 270 nm (120 cm−1) of gap-free electrical tuning for a single gain medium has been realized.
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