Quantum Cascade Laser Makes Progress

Two years after a group of researchers at Bell Labs successfully operated a novel infrared, semiconductor laser, they have the device putting out hundreds of milliwatts of power at temperatures near 50 °C. That's 40 °C warmer than the highest temperature at which its competitors in this wavelength region can operate, and then only at much lower power. The new laser is a quantum cascade laser developed by Jerome Faist, Federico Capasso and their colleagues at Bell Labs. Their modifications of the 1994 design have produced a laser that operates in a pulsed mode at 5.2 μm and generates maximum peak powers of about 200 mW at 27 °C and 100 mW at 47 °C.