New designs and recent experiments on intracavity nonlinear wave mixing in semiconductor lasers
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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.
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.
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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