THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF IV-VI MID-IR MQW VCSELs (Paperback)

Mid-infrared section of the optical spectrum is typically between 3 to 30μm wavelengths. This area represents optical absorption of a wide range of chemical and organic compounds. Mid-IR absorption spectroscopy is one of the known highly accurate chemical analyses. There are several requirements for the light source used in such techniques. Thermal stability, tunability, monochromaticity, and sufficient power output are a few vital elements of such a system. Lead salt lasers are one of the known sources for mid-infrared light. They can cover 2.9 to 27μm wavelength. The main difficulty of lead salts is their poor thermal conductivity. This prevents the traditional edge-emitting laser to operate continuously (i.e. CW mode) at room temperature. CW mode is a necessary condition, since any spectral analysis needs a light source with minimum harmonics. To this date, the highest temperature CW mid-IR available is around 223K, which is still well below thermoelectric cooling range (i.e. 260K). The main goal of this research is to assist the development of an innovative light source that can be installed in a portable optical spectroscopy unit.