Characterization and analysis of highly diagonal Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers

The as yet unattained milestone of room-temperature operation is essential for establishing Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers (THz QCLs) as practical sources of THz radiation. Temperature performance is hypothesized to be limited by upper laser level lifetime reduction due to non-radiative scattering, particularly by longitudinal optical phonons. To address this issue, this work studies highly "diagonal" QCLs, where the upper and lower laser level wave functions are spatially separated to preserve upper laser level lifetime, as well as several other issues relevant to high temperature performance. The highly diagonal devices of this work performed poorly, but the analysis herein nevertheless suggest that diagonality as a design strategy cannot yet be ruled out. Other causes of poor performance in the lasers are identified, and suggestions for future designs are made.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Chan, Chun Wang Ivan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Qing Hu.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62456

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/62456