Broadly continuously tunable slot waveguide quantum cascade lasers based on a continuum-to-continuum active region design

We report our progress in the development of broadly tunable single-mode slot waveguide quantum cascade lasers based on a continuum-to-continuum active region design. The electroluminescence spectrum of the continuum-to-continuum active region design has a full width at half maximum of 440 cm−1 at center wavelength ~10 μm at room temperature (300 K). Devices using the optimized slot waveguide structure and the continuum-to-continuum design can be tuned continuously with a lasing emission over 42 cm−1, from 9.74 to 10.16 μm, at room temperature by using only current tuning scheme, together with a side mode suppression ratio of above 15 dB within the whole tuning range. Published version