A team of researchers has developed a mid-IR quantum-cas-cade (QC) laser that exhibits dual-wavelength emission. One of the wavelengths arises from a novel mechanism for QC laser emission and is emitted at a temperature quite atypical for QC lasers, opening up new possibilities for laser applications in medical diagnostics and environmental sensing. The team, including researchers from Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) and the University of Sheffield (Sheffield, England), is led by Claire Gmachl, professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University and director of the Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE) center. "This laser teaches us that we need to reexamine our understanding of QC lasers and look more broadly into the carrier dynamics in the lasers; doing so can potentially provide us with improved laser performance in the future," says Kale Franz, graduate student at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University. "And improved laser performance directly translates into improved spectroscopic laser systems and more versatile and lower-cost systems for applications," adds Gmachl.
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