Current status and potential of high-power mid-infrared intersubband lasers

Some of the recent advances in high power quantum cascade laser development will be reviewed in this paper. Research areas explored include short wavelength (λ<4 μm) lasers, high performance strain-balanced heterostructures, and high power long wavelength (7< λ< 16 μm) lasers. Near λ=4.5 μm, highlights include demonstration of 18% continuous wave wallplug efficiency at room temperature, 53% pulsed wallplug efficiency at 40 K, and 120 W of peak power output from a single device at room temperature. Near λ~10 μm, up to 0.6 W of continuous output power at room temperature has also been demonstrated, with pulsed efficiencies up to 9%.

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