TITLE: "The Interband Cascade Laser: Stepping Toward Efficient Room-Temperature Emission in the Mid-Infrared"

SPEAKER: Dr. Linda Olafsen,

TIME: Friday, February 26, 1999, starting at 2:30PM

PLACE: George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)

High-power mid-infrared (IR) lasers operating at ambient or thermoelectric cooler temperatures would be quite valuable for applications such as chemical sensing, IR countermeasures, and industrial process control. The interband cascade laser (ICL) has recently operated near room temperature (286 K) in pulsed mode and is a promising new semiconductor mid-IR source. In the ICL, every injected electron can generate multiple photons by making interband transitions at each step of a staircase-like quantum well structure. Hence, the ICL has potentially greater efficiency than conventional diode laser sources, and efficiencies of >1 photon per injected electron have been demonstrated. The ICL design and experimental progress achieved thus far will be reported, and the predicted performance of ICL's will be presented, illustrating the potential of the ICL for high temperature and high cw output power operation with low threshold current densities.