New designs and recent experiments on intracavity nonlinear wave mixing in semiconductor lasers Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • We present theoretical and experimental results on intracavity nonlinear wave mixing in newly-designed two- and multi-wavelength heterolasers. The intracavity nonlinear mixing has been already demonstrated in our works using quantum cascade lasers as well as butt-joint lasers. These experiments clearly show prospects of the intracavity nonlinear mixing in semiconductor injection lasers. We focus on the most promising schemes of nonlinear-mixing lasers (NML), which may be used for the sum-, double- and difference-frequency generation in a wide infrared range. The NMLs can be implemented both in the interband lasers (diode-type lasers) and intersubband lasers (quantum cascade lasers). The former includes the next: (i) Interband Cascade Lasers (or Tunnel-Junction Lasers) with two vertically stacked active regions and a very thin p/n tunnel junction in between that enables current flow through each of two active regions in series, (ii) Transistor Lasers with a three-terminal electrical scheme that ensures independent pumping and control of each of two mixing optical (near-infrared) fields, (iii) Butt-Joint Lasers with two butt-joined laser diodes, which are optically coupled but injection pumped separately, (iv) Surface-Emitting Grating-Outcoupled Lasers with the hybrid-emitting design, where the difference-frequency mid/far-infrared signal is surface-emitted via grating, while the dual-wavelength near-infrared or mid-infrared lasing proceeds in a standard edge-emitting geometry, e.g., in the above-mentioned schemes (i) - (iii), (v) Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers with double distributed Bragg mirrors, which enable dual-wavelength operation due to the presence of two kinds of quantum wells, etc. For any NML design, it is important that difference-frequency generation naturally provides a relatively wide tunability of the mid/far-infrared signal, because even small frequency shift of one lasing field relative to another lasing field results in a large relative shift of the difference frequency. In particular, it makes possible mastering the terahertz frequency range on the basis of a standard heterolaser technology which guarantees high compactness, reliability, continuous-wave room-temperature operation, and low threshold injection pumping. Numerous possible applications of NMLs and open problems in their physics including phase-matched waveguide design are also discussed.

name of conference

  • Proceedings of CAOL 2005. Second International Conference on Advanced Optoelectronics and Lasers, 2005.

published proceedings

  • 2013 International Conference on Advanced Optoelectronics and Lasers (CAOL 2013)

author list (cited authors)

  • Aleshkin, V. Y., Scully, M. O., Zvonkov, B. N., Zvonkov, N. B., Afonenko, A. A., Belyanin, A. A., ... Nekorkin, S. M.

citation count

  • 0

complete list of authors

  • Aleshkin, V Ya||Scully, MO||Zvonkov, BN||Zvonkov, NB||Afonenko, AA||Belyanin, AA||Biryukov, AA||Dubinov, AA||Kocharovsky, VV||Kocharovsky, VI V||Morozov, SV||Nekorkin, SM

publication date

  • January 2005