Journal
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS
Volume 107, Issue 24, Pages -Publisher
AMER INST PHYSICS
DOI: 10.1063/1.4937455
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NSF
- Israel MoD
- MIT-Technion
- Andrew and Erna Finci Viterbi Fellowships
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The maximum operating temperature reported so far for THz-QCLs is similar to 200K. 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/Al0.15GaAs 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 similar to 80meV 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. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available