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We present 3.36 µm buried heterostructure distributed-feedback quantum cascade lasers with a power dissipation at threshold below 250 mW and operation temperatures as high as 130 °C. Threshold values below 20 mA at −10 °C in pulsed operation and 30 mA at −20 °C in continuous-wave operation are reported. Optical power above 130 mW and 13 mW are achieved at −20 °C in pulsed and continuous-wave operation, respectively. Continuous-wave operation occurs until 15 °C. We show single-mode emission in pulsed and continuous-wave operation. Single-mode performance is demonstrated in long pulse (5.56 µs) operation. The laser far-field exhibits a single lobe emission with full-width-half-max of 27 ° × 34 °.
© 2016 Optical Society of America
1. Introduction
The mid-infrared wavelength region gives access to the fundamental roto-vibrational transitions of many low-molecular mass gas species. Therefore, in this spectral region the absorption coefficient is high, allowing highly accurate spectroscopy measurements. Gas spectroscopy is concentrating more and more on this wavelength region to carry out trace gas analysis [1] at the ppb and ppt level [2, 3] and on isotope discrimination measurements [4]. Possible applications are in the fields of medical, environmental and industrial leak trace gas sensing, petrochemical contamination tests as well as laser surgery, free space communication and countermeasures.
The region from 3 µm to 5 µm, situated in the first atmospheric window, is of particular interest for nitrous oxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde and molecules containing the methyl group.
Spectroscopic applications require mode purity and tunability with moderate power values (usually tens of mW). Continuous-wave operation at room-temperature is usually required. Compact measurement systems with low dissipation components would furthermore reduce costs and enable deployments outside of the laboratory. One example would be integrated sensing platforms, which are already being developed with a footprint of the optical components as small as 30.5 × 13 cm2 [5]. Further steps towards miniaturization would include to simplify the driving electronics by utilizing low dissipation continuous-wave laser sources.
Semiconductor laser sources emitting in the 3 µm wavelength region include Interband Cascade Lasers (ICL), Interband Diode Lasers and Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs) [6].
ICLs have made huge progress in terms of temperature performance, mode stability and threshold reduction. Single-mode emission for a temperature range of 60 °C [7], power dissipation at threshold ( , 400 mA) of 95 mW at room-temperature [8] and continuous-wave operation with 10 mW of output power [9] were presented around the 3.5 µm wavelength range. Diode lasers have shown continuous-wave room-temperature emission [10, 11] with threshold current densities of and output powers reaching more than 100 mW.
QCLs have also been subject to performance improvements. One very attractive feature is the fact that the InGaAs/AlInAs material system on InP substrate is widely used in the telecommunication industry, processing techniques are now established and buried heterostructure techniques are well developed. Lasing operation has been shown at a wavelength around 3 µm by different groups using different material systems [12–15 ]. Additionally, single-mode DFB lasers emitting at 3.2 µm [16] have been demonstrated. A third order unilateral Grating has been used by [17] to reach 1 W of output power at room-temperature with a single-mode operation. The same group showed a third order buried grating on InGaAs/AlAs(Sb) [18]. Output powers in pulsed operation have reached Watt level for QCLs working in this wavelength range [17–21 ] but not yet in continuous-wave operation. Pulsed lasing until 127 °C and continuous-wave operation until 55 °C was presented [12, 20, 22].
QCLs are beneficial for spectroscopic applications as, with heterogeneous stacking, they can span a broad wavelength range in one single laser. They give good performances at various temperatures, as their T 0 value is typically around 200 K. The buried heterostructure technique and epi-down mounting delivers excellent temperature management and enables continuous-wave operation.
As yet, QCLs suffer from high threshold currents and therefore high dissipation values which is a clear disadvantage for application in portable systems. Thresholds of 620 mA in pulsed operation and 500 mA in continuous-wave operation at 3.2 µm at a temperature of 25 °C were presented [22].
Small volume active regions together with optimized active region design and a high facet reflectivity are key factors for low dissipation values in QCLs [23]. Thermal management can be further optimized by using buried heterostructure techniques to achieve low dissipation [24, 25]. In the following, we present our new results, a combination of high power, low threshold currents and low power dissipation.
2. Methods
The QCL active region, presented in this work, is based on a strain compensated GaInAs/AlAs/AlInAs structure [15], modified slightly to shift the emission wavelength from 3.3 µm to 3.36 µm, in order to cover absorption lines of molecules containing the methyl group. The active region consists of 30 periods. The thickness of the InGaAs layer on top of the active region, used for the DFB grating, is 200 nm.
The ridges were etched with width from 1 to 4 µm. These thin ridges help to improve thermal transport and to reduce threshold currents. The grating was defined by a single optical lithography (deep-UV light at 220 nm wavelength) and wet etched. For an emission wavelength of 3.36 µm, we varied the grating period from 530 to 534 nm using an expected effective refractive index of 3.165. The duty cycle of the grating is 50% to maximize the coupling strength. The different gratings are formed with one periodicity (single-grating) or as dual-grating [16]. In a dual-grating, two or more physical grating periodicities are used to form one effective optical grating periodicity, the simplest case of which would be two grating periodicities repeated one after the other, where the effective optical grating periodicity is the average of these two.
The structure was overgrown with an n-doped cladding deposited by Metal-Organic Vapor Phase Epitaxy and consists of several layers of n-doped InP:Si: 0.5 µm (1 × 1017 cm− 3), 2 µm (2 × 1017 cm− 3) 200 nm (5 × 1018 cm− 3) and 1.85 µm InP:Si (7 × 1018 cm− 3). The lasers were processed using the standard buried heterostructure technique [26, 27]. The cleaved devices were mounted epilayer-up on copper blocks. The high-reflectivity (HR) coating on the back facet of the lasers is composed of Al2O3(300 nm)/Au(150 nm) and the front side coating, applied to most lasers, consists of Al2O3(400 nm)/Ge(230 nm)/Al2O3(400 nm)/Ge(230 nm) and show a measured reflectivity of 92%. Measurements were performed on a Peltier cooler. Light-current curves were recorded using a calibrated thermopile detector. Continuous-wave measurements were done with a Keithley 2420 sourcemeter and, to avoid current spikes, with a Wavelength Electronics QCL 2000. Spectral measurements with a resolution of 0.075 cm− 1 were taken by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR). Boxcar integrator measurements used a peltier cooled mercury cadmium telluride (MCT) photovoltaic detector exhibiting a cutoff frequency of 250 MHz. Far-fields were recorded using a goniometer assembly and a pyroelectric detector. For the far-field measurements the device was driven in a micro-macro scheme: A burst of 4807 pulses with a pulse width of 208 ns and 2% duty-cycle where send to the device at an overall repetition rate of 10 Hz. The 10 Hz frequency was used for the lock-in detection.
3. Results
Figure 1 shows the front view of cleaved laser facets. In both cases the height of the active region is 1.7 µm, the average width of the ridge in Fig. 1(a) is 4.075 µm. The device in Fig. 1(b) has a narrower ridge, more precisely 1.35 µm.
Fig. 1 (a) SEM picture of the facet of a device with 4.075 µm width and 1.7 µm height. (b) SEM of a narrower device of 1.35 µm width.
The narrowest ridge width which shows lasing is 1.13 µm the device is 2.5 mm long and high-reflectivity coated on the back. The threshold current amounts to 94 mA at 20 °C.
3.1. Fabry-Perot Results
For standard characterization, Fabry-Perot devices were measured. A device with dimensions of 1 mm × 4.08 µm was coated on both facets with high-reflectivity coating. Lasing operation was observed until 130 °C, as seen in Fig. 2. The threshold data from −20 °C until 120 °C was fitted by the exponential [6]. The extracted T 0 amounts to 81 K, the J 0 is . The relatively low value of T 0 stands in contrast to much larger T 0 values usually published for QCL. The large discontinuity between the strained In0.72Ga0.28As quantum wells and the AlAs barriers should prevent thermal carrier leakage. Additionally, we see no evidence of significant thermal broadening in the spontaneous emission. Therefore we attribute the low T 0 values to carrier losses towards the X- and L-valleys.
Fig. 2 Threshold current density as a function of temperature for a Fabry-Perot device. Laser emission was up to 130 °C.
3.2. High Temperature Performance
Figure 3 shows the power-current-voltage characteristics of a pulsed laser over a temperature range of −20 °C to 110 °C. The device is 1.5 mm long and 4 µm wide, with a high-reflectivity coating on both facets. The power dissipation at −20 °C amounts to 440 mW at threshold. The threshold current is 33 mA (current density of ). The device reaches up to 3.8% wallplug efficiency with a peak power of 130 mW. At 20 °C wallplug efficiency is still 2.9% and the threshold current increases slightly to 47 mA . For 110 °C, the threshold is 186 mA. This threshold current is more than an order of magnitude lower compared to previously published QCL-devices in the 3 µm range [20, 22]. The wallplug is comparable to previous results of 3.1% at 25 °C for emission at 3.2 µm [22].
Fig. 3 Power-current-voltage characteristics of a DFB device for a temperature range of −20 °C to 110 °C in pulsed operation. The dissipation value at −20 °C amounts to 440 mW at a current of 33 mA. The dynamic range of the device at −20 °C amounts to nearly 9:1.
A kink in the current-voltage curve clearly indicates the onset of lasing and subsequently a wide dynamic range of laser operation occurs, which hints to an efficient current-photon conversion due to photon driven transport. We define the dynamic range as: (Jmax(T)−Jthres(T))/Jthres(T) with Jthres, Jmax the current density at threshold and maximum power, respectively. For −20 °C the dynamic range is 9:1 and for 110 °C it decreases to approximately 1:1. Previous devices show roughly a value of 3:1 or lower for the same temperature [16, 21]. We attribute our improvement in dynamic range to a better strain-balanced epitaxial growth of the active region and to improvements of the processing which gave straight sidewalls resulting in a more homogeneous field distribution. The device includes a buried distributed-feedback grating (DFB), but due to the mismatch of the spectral gain curve and the grating periodicity in this specific device, we observe lasing on FP modes (2720 – 2930 cm− 1) instead of the DFB mode (2970 cm− 1).
3.3. Low Dissipation
For smaller contact area devices the threshold current in pulsed operation is reduced even further, as shown in Fig. 4. The device has 500 µm length and a laser ridge width of 2 µm. Front- and backside high reflectivity coating was applied. The threshold current at −10 °C is decreased to 16 mA (current density of ) which corresponds to a dissipation of 230 mW at threshold. The output peak power is up to 35 mW.
Fig. 4 Power-current-voltage characteristics in pulsed operation at −10 °C. Dissipation value at threshold is 230 mW for −10 °C.
3.4. Continuous-wave Operation
The lasers were also tested in continuous-wave operation. Figure 5 shows lasing up to 15 °C. The device is 613 µm long and 2 µm wide. The back facet of the device was coated with a high-reflectivity coating. The threshold current is 30 mA at −20 °C and 48 mA at 15 °C. Peak power is over 10 mW at −20 °C. Even though the thermal conductivity for several devices amounted to values above and the ridges are very narrow, continuous-wave mode seems to be limited to temperatures below 15 °C. This stands in contrast to very high operation temperatures in pulsed mode. We attribute this limitation to a combination of a low T 0-value of these devices and to a strong temperature gradient across the active region. Reaching the maximum operation temperature in the middle of the active region seems to have a detrimental effect on lasing. Continuous-wave measurements conducted on wider ridges gave low threshold values of 90 mA at −20 °C but laser operation was possible only until 0 °C, in agreement with our argument above. This problem can be adressed by reducing the number of active region periods. The overlap in the horizontal direction amounts to 80%, which is higher than the optimum between a high total overlap and a high overlap for the single active region periods [6].
3.5. Spectral Measurements
The bold grey line in Fig. 6(a) shows the spontaneous emission which was measured on a square mesa. The dimensions of the mesa amounts to 215 × 215 µm and it was processed along with the lasers presented here. The boundaries of the mesa are etched instead of cleaved to avoid cavity effects. Full-width-half-max of the spontaneous emission at 14 V is 410 cm− 1 centered around 2900 cm− 1 (3.45 µm).
Fig. 6 (a) Spontaneous emission of the active region at 14 V, measured at room-temperature (bold grey line). The device dimensions are 215 × 215 µm. Full-width-half-max of the emission amounts to 410 cm− 1. Emission spectra of a single-mode DFB laser around 2970 cm− 1 are shown in linear scale. (b) Zoom of the single-mode spectra in dB-scale. Spectra were recorded up to 40 °C in pulsed operation (2%) and continuous wave operation at −20 °C. The device is 750 µm long and 4 µm wide and high-reflectivity coating is applied to both facets.
Single-mode operation of the DFB lasers is presented in Fig. 6(a) and 6(b). The device is 750 µm long and 4 µm wide. Emission spectra are shown for −20 °C up to 40 °C in pulsed operation and for continuous wave operation at −20 °C. The device is double-side coated with a high-reflectivity coating. The side mode suppression ratio is more than 20 dB. The presentation of single-mode DFB lasers fabricated as already demonstrated in [16] shows the reproducibility of using optical lithography with dual-grating technique for small periodicities. An effective refractive index of 3.15 was calculated from several single-mode emitting devices using the relation where Λ is the grating periodicity, λ is the emission wavelength and neff is the effective refractive index.
3.6. Long Pulse Operation
A particularly interesting method of laser spectroscopy, the intermittent modulation concept [28] is a method whereby the shift of wavelength and long output power stability of a laser during a long pulse is used to scan over a resonance. The signal is recorded with high temporal precision and gives therefore a reference and absorption measurement at the same time.
In order to characterize the behavior of our lasers for longer pulse duration we performed a boxcar integrator experiment. The laser is operated with a long pulse width of 5.56 µs and 10% duty-cycle. The submount temperature during the measurement was set to −15 °C and the driving conditions of the laser were 39 mA and 13.4 V. The output of the laser is fed through a FTIR and recorded with a MCT detector. A boxcar integrator is used to sample the signal into time slices of 10 ns and a variable delay. The sampled signals with different time delays are individually fed back to the FTIR for spectral measurements. In this way, we are able to get the spectral information attributed to only 10 ns time slices of a much longer pulse. In Fig. 7 we see this time resolved spectral information. On top we present the frequency shift of the laser during the 5.56 µs pulse. In the first µs, the frequency shifts by more than 2 cm− 1 due to the heating of the active region. For longer pulse duration the frequency stabilizes around 2973 cm− 1. In the bottom we see the time slices spectra plotted in the usual intensity versus frequency plot. The intensity of the spectra gives stable output power for about 2 µs and only then decreases by about one half.
Fig. 7 Single-mode long-pulse measurements at 10% dc at a pulse width of 5.56 µs. The measurement was taken at −15 °C. The output power was stable for at least 2 µs and the emission wavelength tuned continuously from 2976 to 2973 cm− 1. Top: shows the tuning of the emission wavelength versus time delay (starting from pulse onset). The colorscale gives the signal intensity in arbitrary units. Bottom: Single spectra of the different time slices.
These boxcar integrator measurements also help us to investigate the low maximum operation temperature in continuous-wave mode. By increasing the substrate temperature on the device shown in Fig. 7 by 15 °C, the laser emission deteriorates quickly in intensity, after 400 ns laser emission ceases to exist. This again underlines our argument of detrimental heating effects.
3.7. Far-field Measurements
The far-field of a nearly quadratic ridge facet (1.35 µm width and 1.7 µm height) is shown in Fig. 8(a). Figure 8(b) is the horizontal cross-section and Fig. 8(c) is the vertical cross-section of the far-field. Both subfigures are labelled with the full-width-half-max of the emission. Figure 8(d) shows a SEM picture of the laser facet. The far-field shows a single lobed emission with approximately gaussian shape. As expected, the facet exhibits a nearly symmetric far-field pattern with a full-width-half-max of 27 ° × 34 °. Driving conditions were 385 mA at −12 °C. The current was delivered in a micro-macro pulse scheme, using 2% duty cycle and a 10 Hz lock-in detection.
Fig. 8 (a) Far-field, (b) horizontal cross section and (c) vertical cross section of a 4 mm long laser, (d) SEM picture of the facet. The facet has 1.35 µm width and 1.7 µm height. The laser was operated at −12 °C at 385 mA. The Far-field exhibits a full-width-half-max of 27 ° × 34 °.
4. Conclusion
We present GaInAs/AlAs/AlInAs distributed-feedback QCLs with single-mode emission around 3.36 µm showing low dissipation and a high dynamic range. The devices show threshold current values of 16 mA at −10 °C with a threshold power dissipation of 230 mW. Another device shows threshold at −20 °C and still at +20 °C which is 33 mA and 47 mA, respectively. These values are for pulsed operation, continuous-wave values are 90 mA and 30 mA at −20 °C measured on two different devices. Additionally we present single-mode emission on the DFB wavelength for different temperatures in pulsed and continuous-wave operation. Boxcar integrator measurements show mode stability in terms of single-mode operation and output stability during long pulses. The far-field of our small ridges give a symmetric pattern with a full-width-half-max of 27 ° × 34 °.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Emilio Gini for the MOVPE regrowth. Processing was done in FIRST Center for Micro- and Nanoscience. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 317884, the collaborative Integrated Project MIRIFISENS.
M.B optimized the growth and grew the QC structure. M.S. and J.W. optimized processing steps, J.W. designed the QCL active region, fabricated the QCLs, measured and analyzed them. S.R. fabricated the coatings. J.W. wrote the paper and made the figures. J.W. and J.F. joined the discussion and provided comments. All the work has been done under J.F. supervision
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