Terahertz quantum cascade VECSEL

Luyao Xu; Christopher A. Curwen; Philip W. C. Hon; Tatsuo Itoh; Benjamin S. Williams

doi:10.1117/12.2213230

10 March 2016 Terahertz quantum cascade VECSEL

Luyao Xu, Christopher A. Curwen, Philip W. C. Hon, Tatsuo Itoh, Benjamin S. Williams

Proceedings Volume 9734, Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VECSELs) VI; 97340G (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2213230
Event: SPIE LASE, 2016, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs) have been successfully used in the visible and near-infrared to achieve high output power with excellent Gaussian beam quality. However, the concept of VECSEL has been impossible to implement for quantum-cascade (QC) lasers due to the "intersubband selection rule". We have recently demonstrated the first VECSEL in the terahertz range. The enabling component for the QC-VECSEL is an amplifying metasurface reflector composed of a sparse array of metallic sub-cavities, which allows the normally incident radiation to interact with the electrically pumped QC gain medium. In this work, we presented multiple design variations based on the first demonstrated THz QC-VECSEL, regarding the lasing frequencies, the output coupler and the intra-cavity aperture. Our work on THz QC-VECSEL initiates a new approach towards achieving scalable output power in combination with a diffraction-limited beam pattern for THz QC-lasers. The design variations presented in this work further demonstrate the practicality and potential of VECSEL approach to make ideal terahertz QC-laser sources.

Citation Download Citation

Luyao Xu, Christopher A. Curwen, Philip W. C. Hon, Tatsuo Itoh, and Benjamin S. Williams "Terahertz quantum cascade VECSEL", Proc. SPIE 9734, Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VECSELs) VI, 97340G (10 March 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2213230

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