Degl'Innocenti, Riccardo and Shah, Yash D. and Wallis, Robert and Klimont, Adam and Ren, Yuan and Jessop, David S. and Beere, Harvey E. and Ritchie, David A. (2015) A hybrid plasmonic waveguide terahertz quantum cascade laser. Applied Physics Letters, 106 (8): 082101. ISSN 0003-6951
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
We present the realization of a quantum cascade laser emitting at around 2.85 THz, based on a hybrid plasmonic waveguide with a low refractive index dielectric cladding. This hybrid waveguide design allows the performance of a double-metal waveguide to be retained, while improving the emission far-field. A set of lasers based on the same active region material were fabricated with different metal layer thicknesses. A detailed characterization of the performance of these lasers revealed that there is an optimal trade-off that yields the best far-field emission and the maximum temperature of operation. By exploiting the pure plasmonic mode of these waveguides, the standard operation conditions of a double-metal quantum cascade laser were retrieved, such that the maximum operating temperature of these devices is not affected by the process. These results pave the way to realizing a class of integrated devices working in the terahertz range which could be further exploited to fabricate terahertz on-chip circuitry.