Electrically-Pumped III-Nitride Intersubband lasers

The objective of the proposed project is to demonstrate the feasibility and potential for the realization of III-Nitride based intersubband quantum cascade lasers operating at near room temperature. III-Nitrides have a large band gap and band offset that make then well suited to the realization of short wavelength (1.55 mm) 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. The plan is to leverage these two areas of expertise to demonstrate the potential to realize effective THz lasers operating at near room temperature. This will lay the ground work for the realization of a room temperature electrical injection THz quantum cascade laser in Phase II of the project.