Single-mode molecular beam epitaxy grown PbEuSeTe/PbTe buried-heterostructure diode lasers for CO2 high-resolution spectroscopy

Abstract

Buried-heterostructure tunable PbEuSeTe/PbTe lasers were fabricated using a two-stage molecular beam epitaxy growth procedure. Improvements in the processing technique yielded lasers that show performance characteristics significantly better than those reported previously. A continuous wave (cw) operating temperature of 203 K was realized, which is the highest cw operating temperature ever reported for lead-chalcogenides diode lasers. This laser exhibited exceptionally low-threshold currents of 1.4 mA at 90 K and 43 mA at 160 K with single-mode operation for injection currents up to 30Ith and 0.18 mW power at 100 K. The usefulness of the laser, when operating cw at 200 K, was demonstrated by the ability to perform high-resolution spectroscopy of a low-pressure CO2 gas sample.

Quantum cascade laser: Temperature dependence of the performance characteristics and high T0 operation

“…Using the well-known empirical expression J th ϳexp͑T/T 0 ͒ we can deduce a T 0 ϭ110 K by fitting the data from ϳ50 to 125 K. In conventional interband lasers operating at similar wavelengths in various low band gap materials T 0 ranges from 17 to 50 K. 4 -7 Note, however, that some of these lasers were operated with lower thresholds and at significantly higher temperatures. 5,6 The weak temperature dependence of the QC laser threshold can be ascribed to the following: ͑a͒ the material gain is insensitive to the thermal broadening of the electron distribution in the excited state since the two subbands of the laser transition are nearly parallel, 1 ͑b͒ Auger intersubband transition rates are negligible, 8,9 ͑c͒ the variation of the excited state lifetime 4 with temperature is small, being controlled by the Bose-Einstein factor for optical phonons, and ͑d͒ the measured luminescence linewidth 2␥ is weakly temperature dependent.…”

Molecular beam epitaxy of IV–VI semiconductor hetero‐ and nano‐structures

“…Lead salt semiconductor diode lasers [1][2][3][4]15] have been widely used for high-resolution gas spectroscopy [4,16] due to the numerous absorption lines of almost all molecular gases in the MIR spectral region. Depending on the composition of the active region, lead salt lasers have covered the whole 3 to 30 µm wavelength region.…”

“…Recent progress in epitaxial growth techniques has led to the fabrication of lead salt midinfrared diode lasers operating at temperatures up to 225 K in continuous (cw) mode [1] and up to 60 °C in pulsed mode [2]. Already in 1964, the first mid-infrared p-n junction laser was made by Butler et al [3] using Pb 1-x Sn x Te, and since then, efficient mid-and far-infrared IV-VI compound diode lasers have been fabricated, finding their main applications for remote sensing of gaseous pollutants in trace gas sensing devices, toxic gas analysis systems, for human breath analysis in medical diagnostics and industrial process control [4].…”

Assembly of PbTe/Pb-based nanocomposite and photoelectric property

“…As a narrow bandgap semiconductor (approximately 0.32 eV, at 300 K), lead telluride (PbTe) has been extensively studied and used in optical detectors [13], laser devices [14,15], and thermoelectrics [16,17]. Compared to other semiconductor materials, low-dimensional PbTe semiconductors could more easily show the obvious quantum size effect on larger scales because of the larger Bohr exciton radius (approximately 46 nm).…”