APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 93, 141103 2008

Intersubband linewidths in quantum cascade laser designs

A. Wittmann,1,a Y. Bonetti,1 J. Faist,1 E. Gini,2 and M. Giovannini3
1 2

Institute for Quantum Electronics, ETH Zurich, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland FIRST Center for Micro- and Nanoscience, ETH Zurich, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland 3 Institute of Physics, University of Neuchtel, CH-2000 Neuchatel, Switzerland

Received 14 August 2008; accepted 11 September 2008; published online 7 October 2008 We present a model to a priori calculate the temperature and eld dependent intersubband linewidth of the optical transition in quantum cascade laser designs. Besides intra- and intersubband lifetime broadening, it comprises interface roughness scattering based on the approach of Tsujino et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, 062113 2005. We veried our model with experimental data of quantum cascade lasers having different linewidths. Excellent agreement with the experiment was found for the two-phonon resonance design. Linewidths are slightly overestimated in the bound-to-continuum design. Differential gain and threshold current density are in excellent agreement for the two-phonon resonance design. Although the slope efciency is somewhat underestimated at low temperatures, there is still reasonable agreement with the experiment. 2008 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2993212 Since the invention of the quantum cascade QC laser in 1994,1 research focused on the development of active region designs for room temperature RT operation. Nowadays, most high performance QC lasers rely on the bound-tocontinuum and two-phonon resonance designs, demonstrated in 2001.2,3 Since then, improvements mostly focused on the thermal management and reduction of waveguide losses. With a buried heterostructure design, a RT continuous wave cw QC laser at 9.1 m was made in 2002.4 In 2006, Diehl et al. presented metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy MOVPE grown lasers, buried with iron-doped cladding layers and operating cw up to 400 K.5 Recently, Bai et al. demonstrated 1.3 W output power at RT by epidown mounting a strainbalanced 4.6 m QC laser on diamond.6 Further performance improvements are expected by innovative active region architectures. Surprisingly, few attempts have been made to compare the experimental operational parameters threshold current density, slope efciency with predicted values. Howard et al. reported a model for optimizing QC lasers.7 However, this model relies on the empirical t of experimental data of electroluminescence, which are a priori not known in unexplored quantum designs. In our model, electronic states, scattering times and matrix elements of the optical transitions are computed using a one-band model, which includes nonparabolicity via an energy-dependent effective mass.8 The thermally distributed carriers are taken into account with a self-consistent solution of the coupled Schroedinger and Poisson equations. It is important to note that all temperatures used in this model are lattice temperatures. Our model considers interface roughness for the linewidth calculation using the approach of Tsujino et al.,9 which is based on the theory of Ando et al.10 and Unuma et al.11,12 Assuming uncorrelated interfaces and a standard Gaussian autocorrelation of the roughness 2 2 2 hrhr = exp r r / with an average roughness height and a correlation length along the interface plane, we can calculate the emission linewidth for the transition between two parabolic subbands i and j,9
a

2 2 2 R = m / 2 2 2 U 2 k 2 i zk j zk ,

Electronic mail: wittmann@phys.ethz.ch.

where izk is the wave function of the state i for the carriers with the effective mass m at the interface z = zk and U is the conduction band offset. The interface parameter product is xed for a given set of epitaxial growth parameters. Furthermore, we take into account lifetime broadening due to ultrafast intra- and intersubband relaxation originating from the dominant LO phonon scattering mechanism in mid-IR QC lasers,13 2opt = 1 / inter + 2 / intra. We are neglecting all other scattering sources like LA phonon, electron-electron, and impurity scattering. Our model takes into account multioptical transitions with different linewidth 2 = 2R + opt. We sum over all transition energies with a Lorentzian lineshape weighted with the oscillator strength, which results in the optical lineshape of the quantum design. In order to validate our model with experimental data, we chose the bound-to-continuum and two-phonon resonance designs since they show different linewidths. The active regions of both designs, tailored for emission at 8.4 m, were grown in subsequent runs in our molecular beam epitaxy MBE system using the same doping prole layer sequences given in the caption of Fig. 1. The two designs differ mainly by a slightly thicker extraction barrier in the two-phonon design marked with an asterisk in the gure caption, which partly decouples the active region from the injector. X-ray measurement revealed 5.9% thicker layers than designed for the bound-to-continuum type, which was considered in our calculations. Further processing is identical to that described elsewhere14 and resulted in 3-mm-long buried heterostructure QC lasers which were subsequently mounted epi-up on copper mounts and HR-coated on the back facet. Two representative lasers with identical ridge width 10.1 m were selected for the comparison. These devices are lasing cw up to a temperature of 70 and 80 C, respectively. We measured the spontaneous emission at different biases and temperatures using a Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer together with a LN2 cooled mercury cadmium telluride MCT detector in step-scan mode and a lock-in
2008 American Institute of Physics

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FIG. 1. Color online Bandstructure and the moduli squared of the relevant wave functions for one out of N p = 35 periods under an applied electric eld of 33 kV/cm. The layer sequence of one active cell, given in nanometers and starting from the injector barrier of a the two-phonon resonance design is 4 . 3 / 1.7 / 0 . 9 / 5.4 / 1 . 1 / 5.3 / 1 . 2 / 4.7 / 2 . 2 / 4.3 / 1 . 5 / 3.8 / 1 . 6 / 3.4 / 1 . 8 / 3.0 / 2 . 1 / 2.8 / 2 . 5 / 2.7 / 3 . 2 / 2.7 / 3 . 6 / 2.5 and b the bound-to-continuum design is 4 . 4 / 1.7 / 0 . 9 / 5.3 / 1 . 1 / 5.2 / 1 . 2 / 4.7 / 1 . 3 / 4.2 / 1 . 5 / 3.9 / 1 . 6 / 3.4 / 1 . 8 / 3.1 / 2 . 1 / 2.8 / 2 . 5 / 2.7 / 3 . 2 / 2.7 / 3 . 6 / 2.5, where InAlAs barriers are in bold face, InGaAs wells are shown in normal face, and numbers underlined correspond to the n-doped layers Si, 1.5 1017 cm3.

FIG. 3. Theoretical and experimental linewidth vs bias at different temperature of a the two-phonon resonance and b the bound-to-continuum design. In order to avoid superluminescence, we cleaved very short lasers and measured the spontaneous emission perpendicular to the waveguide.

amplier. Applying Eq. 1 on the experimental data at 8 V of the two-phonon resonance design, we found an interface parameter product = 0.973 nm2 for the growth of InGaAs/AlInAs layers in our MBE system, which is close to the one extracted in an earlier experiment 1.01 nm2.9 Figures 2a and 2b depict the measured and calculated spectra of the two-phonon design at 300 K. The broad peak centered around 220 meV indicates injection from the ground state g into the second upper state 13. This peak is also present in the bound-to-continuum design since both structures have an almost identical injector design. Comparison of theoretical and experimental curves indicates reduced injection efciency at biases below 7 V. Figures 3a and 3b reveal wider gain spectra for the bound-to-continuum design. However, there is a marked narrowing of the linewidth with increasing bias, leading to widths comparable to the two-phonon resonance design at high bias. This is explained by the number of states with

different transition energies Eij over which the oscillator strength spreads 11, 10, 9, and 8, which decreases with increasing bias and nally is concentrated on the 11 state. In the two-phonon resonance design, the oscillator strength is mainly distributed over two transitions, and we observe a narrowing with increasing bias because the active region is still coupled to the injector region. Intra- and intersubband scattering explains broadening of the emission with increasing temperature. Figure 4 shows LIV-curves of both devices at different temperatures where the power was measured with a calibrated thermopile detector. For an accurate estimation of the transport, we consider the reduction of the upper state lifetime by the optical eld by comparing the JNDR from the lasers and from the luminescence samples at the lasers roll-over bias. The lower JNDR = nse / tunnel + transit in the bound-to-continuum design is explained by the longer tunneling time tunnel,BTC = 2.06 ps and tunnel,2Ph = 1.23 ps at 300 K through the 5.9% thicker injection barrier resulting

FIG. 2. Color online a Experimental and b theoretical lineshape of the two-phonon resonance design.

FIG. 4. LIV-curves of the two-phonon resonance solid line and the boundto-continuum dashed QC laser measured in pulsed operation 200 ns, 99 kHz for different temperatures. The setups collection efciency of 74% is not corrected in this plot.

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gain for the bound to continuum design because the calculated linewidths are wider than in reality Fig. 3b. Experimental threshold current densities do not show a signicant difference between the two designs. This is explained by the larger matrix element in the bound-tocontinuum design zBTC = 2.72 nm and z2Ph = 2.5 nm at 300 K, which largely compensates for the broader gain spectrum. Theoretical threshold current calculations in Fig. 5b show a difference between the two designs, which is due to the difference between theoretical and experimental linewidths for the bound-to-continuum type. The theoretical slope efciency in Fig. 5c deviates at low temperature from the measured values, indicating that the losses are not correctly predicted. In fact, applying the experimental losses extracted from the ratio of slope efciencies of coated and uncoated device for the slope efciency calculation improves correlation with the measurement. In conclusion, this simple model constitutes a useful evaluation tool for quantum cascade laser designs to a priori predict their linewidths.
FIG. 5. Theoretical and experimental values of a differential gain, b threshold current density, and c slope efciency of the bound-tocontinuum BTC and two-phonon resonance 2Ph design. The setups collection efciency was taken into account.

This work was supported by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation CTI and the Swiss National Science Foundation NCCR-Quantum Photonics.
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from the higher growth rate. Since the measured doping level equals in both designs, we nd that the slightly thicker extraction barrier in the two-phonon design is not signicantly limiting the transport time transit,BTC = 2.0 ps and transit,2Ph = 2.1 ps at 300 K. Knowing the linewidth, we are now in the position to calculate the expected values at threshold bias for the differential gain, threshold current density, and slope efciency. For the calculation of total losses tot, we assume a xed line broadening for the intersubband ISB losses,14 taken from the linewidth calculation at high bias only one transition involved and the corresponding temperature. The slope efciency follows that of Ref. 15 but with the non-resonant non-res res = tot ISB , considering back lling, total losses tot h m,front up,eff dP = N p non-res , e tot dI down + up,eff 2

with the number of periods N P, the effective upper state lifetime up,eff = up1 down / opt, the mirror losses of the front facet m,front, and the lifetime of upper and lower laser level up and down. Figure 5a depicts the theoretical differential gain. In order to validate the predicted values, we extracted the differential gain from the experimental threshold current density and waveguide losses. Excellent agreement between experiment and model was attained for the two-phonon resonance design. The model results in a lower differential

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