Room temperature continuous wave, monolithic tunable THz sources based on highly efficient mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers.

ABSTRACT: A compact, high power, room temperature continuous wave terahertz source emitting in a wide frequency range (?~1-5 THz) is of great importance to terahertz system development for applications in spectroscopy, communication, sensing, and imaging. Here, we present a strong-coupled strain-balanced quantum cascade laser design for efficient THz generation based on intracavity difference frequency generation. Room temperature continuous wave emission at 3.41?THz with a side-mode suppression ratio of 30 dB and output power up to 14 ?W is achieved with a wall-plug efficiency about one order of magnitude higher than previous demonstrations. With this highly efficient design, continuous wave, single mode THz emissions with a wide frequency tuning range of 2.06-4.35?THz and an output power up to 4.2 ?W are demonstrated at room temperature from two monolithic three-section sampled grating distributed feedback-distributed Bragg reflector lasers.

SUBMITTER: Lu Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4806356 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature