Surface-Emitting Quantum Cascade Laser with 2nd-order Metal-Semiconductor Gratings for Single-Lobe Emission

Grating-coupled, surface-emitting (GCSE) quantum-cascade lasers (QCLs) are demonstrated with high-power, single-lobe surface emission. A 2nd-order Au-semiconductor distributed-feedback (DFB)/ distributed-Bragg-reflector (DBR) grating is used for feedback and out-coupling. The DFB and DBR grating regions are 2.55 mm- and 1.28 mm-long, respectively, for a total grating length of 5.1 mm. The lasers are designed to operate in a symmetric longitudinal mode by causing resonant coupling of the guided optical mode to the antisymmetric surface-plasmon modes of the 2nd-order metal/semiconductor grating. In turn, the antisymmetric longitudinal modes are strongly absorbed by the metal in the grating, causing the symmetric longitudinal mode to be favored to lase, which produces a single lobe beam over a grating duty-cycle range of 36-41 %. Simulations indicate that the symmetric mode is always favored to lase, independent of the random phase of residual reflections from the device's cleaved ends. Peak pulsed output powers of similar to 0.4 W were measured with single-lobe, single-mode operation near 4.75 mu m.