Terahertz laser chip sets new record
1 min read
A team of British scientists has achieved an output power of more than 1W from a quantum cascade terahertz laser chip.
The new record more than doubles landmarks set by MIT and the Vienna University of Technology last year.
What's more, the University of Leeds researchers managed to shrink the size of the chip to just a few square millimetres, considerably less than previous designs.
Edmund Linfield, a professor of terahertz electronics at the university's School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, said: "The process of making these lasers is extraordinarily delicate. Layers of different semiconductors such as gallium arsenide are built up one atomic monolayer at a time.
"We control the thickness and composition of each individual layer very accurately and build up a semiconductor material of between typically 1,000 and 2,000 layers."
In October 2013, Vienna University of Technology researchers smashed the world record output power for quantum cascade terahertz lasers previously held by MIT.
The Austrian team reported an output of 0.47W from a single laser facet, nearly double the output power reported by the MIT team.
Prof Linfield continued: "The record power of our new laser is due to the expertise that we have developed at Leeds in fabricating these layered semiconductors, together with our ability to engineer these materials subsequently into suitable and powerful laser devices."
