Electrical, optical and far-field measurement of semiconductor light sources

Abstract

In this report, we will touch on the characteristics of semiconductor laser devices, namely, their fundamental operations, implementations, background theories, requirements of semiconductor lasers and some useful equations. We will also discuss on the characteristics, advantages, applications and power description of a Quantam Cascade Laser (QCL) device. Finally we will discuss on the optimization of strain-balanced QCL structure (QCL design) and high power QCL performance improvement.

In the QCL performance improvement section we will discuss on the ways of how the QCL device performance can be optimized by removing the thermal energy from the QCL device active region through the optimizations of a strain-balanced QCL structure and through butterfly package. This optimizations method allows the efficiency of the package to improve by 90% as compared to existing similar schemes. Also we aim to build a far-field measurement setup to characterize novel semiconductor device light source that emits light in the far infrared region, around 5um. These products should be accurate, user-friendly and durable. Recommendations on future developments will also be highlighted.