High Performance Quantum Cascade Lasers

Currently there is wide variation in QCL performance at different wavelengths. Performance of new generation of QCLs recently demonstrated at wavelengths near 4.6 & #956;m exceeds the performance of legacy QCLs at other wavelengths by a wide margin. Much of the progress at 4.6 & #956;m was made under DARPA"s EMIL program. The objective of the present Phase II proposal is to experimentally validate the new QCL design and packaging concepts developed in Phase I for radical improvements in QCL performance at all wavelengths, which are based on our recent advances in QCL performance made at 4.6 & #956;m. Specifically, we will concentrate our efforts on QCL developments in 3.5 to 4.2 & #956;m and 8 to 12 & #956;m regions using our revolutionary QCL structure design concepts that afford unprecedented design freedom for performance optimization. We will further scale up the power and wall-plug efficiency from individual QCL devices (single emitters) through improvements in package-level heat dissipation. The resulting commercial availability of high-power, high efficiency MWIR and LWIR QCLs will revolutionize many nascent applications, such as DIRCM, chemical sensing, LADAR, DIAL, non-invasive medical diagnostics, and free space optical communications.