Open AccessPulsed and CW performance of 7-stage interband cascade lasers
Author(s) -
C. L. Canedy,
J. Abell,
Charles D. Merritt,
W. W. Bewley,
Chul Soo Kim,
Mijin Kim,
I. Vurgaftman,
J. R. Meyer
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.22.007702
Subject(s) - cascade , materials science , optics , laser , wafer , optoelectronics , wavelength , semiconductor laser theory , laser beam quality , injection seeder , tunable laser , laser beams , physics , chemistry , chromatography
We report a narrow-ridge interband cascade laser emitting at λ ≈3.5 μm that produces up to 592 mW of cw power with a wallplug efficiency of 10.1% and beam quality factor of M(2) = 3.7 at T = 25 °C. A pulsed cavity length study of broad-area lasers from the same wafer confirms that the 7-stage structure with thicker separate confinement layers has a reduced internal loss of ≈3 cm(-1). More generally, devices from a large number of wafers with similar 7-stage designs and wavelengths spanning 2.95-4.7 μm exhibit consistently higher pulsed external differential quantum efficiencies than earlier state-of-the-art ICLs.