Quantum cascade lasers: Quantum design, high performance technology for mid- and far-infrared photonics and commercialization

Abstract

The physics of quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) will be reviewed. <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup> The unipolar nature of these devices combined with the capabilities of electronic and photonic bandstructure engineering leads to unprecedented design flexibility and functionality compared to other lasers. Topics to be discusses also include: high-power room temperature cw QCLs grown by MOCVD <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> , nonlinear optical QCLs based on the integration within the active region of a nonlinear optical element with giant nonlinear susceptibility such as recently developed Terahertz coherent source based on difference frequency generation <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> , single mode spiral lasers based on chaotic resonators, mid-ir plasmonic laser antennas following our previous work in the near ir <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">4</sup> , ultrabroadband QCL sources for lab-on-a-chip and optofluidic QCLs <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">5</sup> . The talk will conclude with applications to chemical sensing and trace gas analysis along with the ongoing commercialization of this technology.