Patent ID: 6795467
Filing Date: 2004-09-21
Classification: B82Y,H01S

Abstract:
A unipolar quantum cascade (QC) laser device particularly configured to provide a measurement of intersubband electroluminescence (ISB-EL) said QC laser device comprising the following layers and regions formed on a semiconductor substrate:a core region including a QC active region which comprises a multiplicity of unipolar radiative transition regions interleaved with a multiplicity of unipolar injection/relaxation regions, upper and lower cladding regions bounding said core region, at least said cladding region and said core region having the shape of a longitudinal stripe having sidewalls and a top surface, said lower cladding region disposed to cover a top major surface of said semiconductor substrate, a top metal contact layer disposed over the stripe-shaped upper cladding region a bottom metal contact layer disposed to overlay a bottom major surface of said semiconductor substrate; and a pair of laser facets formed as the terminations of said swipe-shaped core region, said facets formed to be orthogonal to said longitudinal strive-shaped core region such that upon the application of a bias current between said top and bottom metal contact layers, laser emission will be created in a longitudinal direction along said QC active region and exit at said pair of laser facets characterized in that the unipolar quantum cascade laser structure is formed to include a longitudinal cleave through the stripe-shaped upper cladding and core regions so as to expose the QC active region, and the laser facets are formed to include a highly reflective surface coating, such that intersubband electroluminescence (ISB-EL) will exit from the exposed QC active region.