Carrier leakage into the continuum in diagonal GaAs/Al
Name
Carrier leakage into the continuum in diagonal GaAs Al0.15GaAs terahertz quantum cascade lasers.pdf
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1.11 MB
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Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Albo, Asaf
Hu, Qing
Alternative Title
Carrier leakage into the continuum in diagonal GaAs/Al[subscript 0.15]GaAs terahertz quantum cascade lasers
Date Issued
December 2015
Journal
Applied Physics Letters
Publisher
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Citation
Albo, Asaf and Hu, Qing. “Carrier Leakage into the Continuum in Diagonal GaAs/Al[subscript 0.15]GaAs Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers.” Applied Physics Letters 107, no. 24 (December 2015): 241101 © 2015 American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The maximum operating temperature reported so far for THz-QCLs is ∼200 K. With the well-known degradation mechanism of thermally activated LO-phonon scattering, one straightforward strategy to improve their temperature performances is the use of diagonal structures in which the upper-to-lower state scattering time is lengthened. However, the effectiveness of this method for achieving room temperature operation remains to be demonstrated. Here, we studied the temperature degradation of highly diagonal GaAs/Al[subscript 0.15] GaAs THz-QCLs. By analyzing their output power dependence on temperature, we identified the physical mechanism that limits their performance to be thermally activated leakage into the continuum, as evidenced by the large activation energy of ∼80 meV extracted from the Arrhenius plot. This observation is further supported by a careful analysis of current-voltage characteristics, especially in regions of high biases. In order to significantly improve the temperature performances of diagonal THz-QCLs, this leakage should be eliminated.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4937455
