Highly efficient surface-emitting semiconductor lasers exploiting quasi-crystalline distributed feedback photonic patterns

摘要

Quasi-crystal distributed feedback lasers do not require any form of mirror cavity to amplify and extract radiation.Once implemented on the top surface of a semiconductor laser,a quasi-crystal pattern can be used to tune both the radiation feedback and the extraction of highly radiative and high-quality-factor optical modes that do not have a defined symmetric or anti-symmetric nature.Therefore,this methodology offers the possibility to achieve efficient emission,combined with tailored spectra and controlled beam divergence.Here,we apply this concept to a onedimensional quantum cascade wire laser.By lithographically patterning a series of air slits with different widths,following the Octonacci sequence,on the top metal layer of a double-metal quantum cascade laser operating at THz frequencies,we can vary the emission from single-frequency-mode to multimode over a 530-GHz bandwidth,achieving a maximum peak optical power of 240mW(190 mW)in multimode(single-frequency-mode)lasers,with record slope efficiencies for multimode surface-emitting disordered THz lasers up to ≈570 mW/A at 78 K and ≈720 mW/A at 20 K and wall-plug efficiencies of η≈1%.