Ultrafast population dynamics in electrically modulated terahertz quantum cascade lasers

The ultrafast population dynamics in electrically modulated three-well terahertz quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) is studied by using the self-consistent Bloch–Poisson equations. In the modulation process, the non-equilibrium oscillations of the population inversion are found before the population equilibrium recovers. The equilibrium formation time increases nonlinearly with the period number. This phenomenon stems from the non-uniform distribution of the electric potential. In different periods, different responses to the electrical modulation are also explored. An in-depth understanding of electron transport in the cascade structure is obtained. Finally, we demonstrate the feasibility of a modulation frequency up to gigahertz in terahertz QCLs.

• Publication year

  2013

• Venue

  New Journal of Physics

• Publication date

  2013-07-01

• Fields of study

  Physics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1088/1367-2630/15/7/075009
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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