The effect of external cavity reflectivity on the dynamic behaviors of quantum cascade laser

Abstract

The effect of external reflectivity on the dynamic behaviors of quantum cascade laser coupled to external cavity is theoretically investigated. Our model is based on three-level rate equations including the dependence of the loss on external cavity parameters. We find in particular that the effective reflectivity, photon lifetime and threshold current are strongly influenced by the external cavity length and external reflectivity. The optimum external cavity length (Lext) is about 4 cm. We also show that the external cavity reflectivity influences significantly the dynamics of the electron number in the upper and lower laser levels, population inversion, and photon numbers in the Fabry Perot and in the external cavities. In addition, the external cavity reflectivity dependences of turn-on delay time (tth) is also studied and discussed.