Room temperature continuous wave operation of quantum cascade lasers with watt-level optical power

Abstract

We demonstrate quantum cascade lasers at an emitting wavelength of 4.6μm, which are capable of room temperature, high power continuous wave (cw) operation. Buried ridge geometry with a width of 9.8μm was utilized. A device with a 3mm cavity length that was epilayer-down bonded on a diamond submount exhibited a maximum output power of 1.3W at room temperature in cw operation. The maximum output power at 80K was measured to be 4W, with a wall plug efficiency of 27%.