High speed quantum cascade lasers

Project funded by Swedish Research Council (Project grant), grant 2015-05470_VR. Participating organisations named by the source: KTH, Royal Institute of Technology. Funded amount: SEK 3,400,000, as stated by the source. Runs 2016-01-01 to 2019-12-31. Keywords: Naturvetenskap, Natural Sciences, Fysik, Physical Sciences, Den kondenserade materiens fysik, Condensed Matter Physics. Source: OpenAIRE Graph, from the funder's project data (collected by OpenAIRE on 2025-12-05); national funding data, not CORDIS. Abstract given by the source: Motivation and Objectives The quantum cascade laser (QCL) is a special kind of semiconductor laser, usually emitting mid-infrared light in 3-14 µm range. Unlike a conventional semiconductor laser which amplifies the light via electronic transitions between the conduction band and valence band, the QCL utilizes transitions between subbands within the conduction band, created by multi quantum well layers. The progress in recent years has been rapid and there are now QCL lasers with room temperature continuous wave operation on the market. Despite this there has been insufficient research done on the high speed modulation of room temperature QCLs and there is no consensus about the theoretical and practical limits of the modulation bandwidth. The objectives of this project are: • to experimentally and theoretically investigate the modulation response of QCLs operating at room temperature in order to understand the underlying physics and the main limiting effects. • to develop a high speed, high power edge emitting QCL suitable for e.g. free space communication. • to develop a high speed, energy efficient, surface emitting QCL using photonic crystal (PC) structure suitable for e.g. portable spectroscopy. Expertise The project will combine KTHs expertise on design and fabrication of high speed telecom lasers with the world leading expertise on QCL development of our collaborators at ETH and III-V labs. Activities, project organisation, methods and implementation plan 1. Design and growth of QCL structure: Particular attention will be given to enhance the carrier dyanamics suitable for high speed operation; Month 1-Mont 36 2. Design & fabrication of PC QCLs: Particular attention will be given to low index contrast photonic crystals that will be realized in task 3; Month 6-Month36 3. BH QCL and BH PC QCL: Ralized by deep etching of the ridges/PCs followed by regrowth of current blocking semi-insulating InP by HVPE; Month 6-Month 36 4. Characterisation of SI-InP in BH-QCL [shortened; the full text is on the OpenAIRE page]

Original source.

Source: OpenAIRE Graph: projects of national funders, OpenAIRE, from the project data of Swedish Research Council. Retrieved 2026-10-28. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (OpenAIRE Graph). Selected metadata, adapted presentation; the publisher's record is authoritative. No endorsement by the source is implied. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).

AI-assisted summary: The project on high speed quantum cascade lasers, funded by the Swedish Research Council with SEK 3,400,000, ran from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2019, involving KTH, Royal Institute of Technology. It focuses on the modulation of room temperature QCLs. Suggested technology pillar: sensing. Generated by AI from the public source text; it may contain errors and the original source is authoritative.