Temperature performance of terahertz quantum-cascade lasers with resonant-phonon active-regions

Abstract

Significant progress has recently been made toward improving the power output, beam quality and spectral characteristics of terahertz quantum cascade lasers (QCLs). However, the maximum operating temperature of the best-performing devices has become relatively stagnant and is in the range of 150–200 K for QCLs designed to emit in the frequency range of 2–4 THz. Such QCLs are primarily designed with resonant-phonon depopulation schemes. The requirement to cryogenically cool terahertz QCLs leads to stringent limitations on their use for various applications. Although significant advances have been made to model quantum transport in quantum cascade superlattices, the relative role of various electron transport mechanisms as a function of temperature is not clear. This article discusses temperature behavior of resonant-phonon terahertz QCLs with respect to a variety of active-region design schemes, and argues that precise understanding of high-temperature transport remains elusive for terahertz QCLs. The role of electron–phonon scattering, collisional-broadening, thermal leakage, and interface-roughness scattering towards the degradation of intersubband optical gain at higher temperatures is discussed for the popular terahertz QCL designs.