Electrically-Pumped III-Nitride Terahertz Intersubband lasers

The objective of the proposed project is to demonstrate III-Nitride based terahertz intersubband quantum cascade lasers operating at near room temperature. III-Nitrides have a large band gap and band offset that has generated recent interest for the realization of short wavelength (1.55 um) telecommunications lasers. However, in addition to the large band offset that makes short wavelengths possible, III-Nitrides are also characterized by a very large phonon energy (90-meV). This makes them ideally suited to the realization of near room temperature operating THz lasers. The goal is to target this THz wavelength, with device design pursuing emission in the 30 - 300 µm range (approximately 10 to 1 THz). This group has already demonstrated itself in the areas of III-Nitride inter-band devices and InP-based intersubband based quantum cascade lasers. Phase I leveraged these two areas of expertise to demonstrate the potential to realize effective THz lasers operating at near room temperature. In Phase II we will complete the development and fabricate working MOCVD grown, electrical injection, THz quantum cascade lasers that operate at or above room temperature (> 300 K).