Superlattices and Microstructures 37 (2005) 107113

www.elsevier.com/locate/superlattices

Active region design of a terahertz

GaN/Al0.15Ga0.85N quantum cascade laser
Greg Suna,, Richard A. Soref b, Jacob B. Khurginc
a Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA 02125, USA
b Air Force Research Laboratory, Sensors Directorate, Hanscom AFB, MA 01731, USA
c Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University,

Baltimore, MD 21218, USA

Received 23 June 2004; received in revised form 9 September 2004; accepted 21 September 2004
Available online 22 October 2004

Abstract
We propose the idea of developing THz quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) with GaN-based quantum
well (QW) structures with significant advantages over the currently demonstrated THz lasers in
the GaAs-based material system. While the ultrafast longitudinal optical (LO) phonon scattering
in AlGaN/GaN QWs can be used for the rapid depopulation of the lower laser state, the large
LO-phonon energy (90 meV) can effectively reduce the thermal population of the lasing states at
higher temperatures. Our analysis of one particular structure has shown that a relatively low threshold
current density of 832 A/cm2 can provide a threshold optical gain of 50/cm at room temperature.
We have also found that the characteristic temperature in this structure is as high as 136 K.
2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Gallium nitride; Quantum cascade laser; THz emission; Optical phonon scattering

1. Introduction
Semiconductor terahertz intersubband lasers have been proposed for several material
systems [13] and were recently demonstrated in the GaAs/AlGaAs material system using
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 617 287 6432; fax: +1 617 287 6053.

E-mail address: greg.sun@umb.edu (G. Sun).

0749-6036/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.spmi.2004.09.046

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G. Sun et al. / Superlattices and Microstructures 37 (2005) 107113

a quantum cascade scheme [411]. These THz quantum cascade lasers have so far been
operating at less than 150 K. A major obstacle for achieving higher temperature operation
is attributed to the thermal excitation of electrons from the ground state into the lower laser
state at higher temperatures that reduces the population inversion between the laser states.
In the chirped superlattice (SL) approach [68], depopulation of the lower laser state relies
on resonant tunneling and carriercarrier scattering within a miniband whose bandwidth
is typically narrower than the LO-phonon energy, a technique that suffers from thermal
population of the lower laser state at higher temperatures. A different approach utilizing
the near resonant LO-phonon emission scattering to rapidly depopulate the lower laser
state has produced pulsed and CW THz lasing at 137 K [10] and 93 K [11], respectively.
In the GaAs-based material system, this implies that the energy separation between the
lower laser state and the ground state where the majority of electrons reside is just
above the LO-phonon energy (36 meV), which is comparable to room temperature kB T
(26 meV). Obviously, a material system with a large LO-phonon energy will be desirable
for the high-temperature operation of THz QCLs. Here, we propose to use a GaN-based
system with large LO-phonon energy (90 meV) for THz QCLs. The advantages are
threefold. First, the large LO-phonon energy in a GaN-based system can reduce the thermal
population of the lower laser state. Second, ultrafast LO-phonon scattering in GaN/AlGaN
QWs can be used for the rapid depopulation of the lower laser state [12,13]. Third,
the large LO-phonon energy can also increase the lifetime of the upper laser state by
reducing the relaxation of electrons with higher in-plane kinetic energy via emission of
a LO-phonon. Although the epitaxy of GaN/AlGaN heterostructures on sapphire and SiC
has been plagued by a relatively high density of dislocations, recently single-crystal GaN
substrates have been made available for the growth of low defect nitride structures. So
far, intersubband transitions in that material system have mostly been explored for nearinfrared applications because of its large conduction band offset (2 eV in GaN/AlN)
[1215]. In this study, we bring forth the potential significance of using a GaN-based
material system for the THz QCLs aimed at achieving higher temperature operation.
2. Active region design
IIIV nitrides are known in their wurtzite structure to possess a large spontaneous
polarization and piezoelectric constants. As a result, two-dimensional charges build up
at nitride heterointerfaces where the polarization discontinuities occur, causing relatively
strong built-in electric fields [16]. These built-in fields oppose each other in well and
barrier regions, producing oppositely tilted potential profiles for wells and barriers. Fig. 1
shows the active region of the proposed Al0.15 Ga0.85N/GaN QCL consisting of multiple
cascading periods under an external bias of F = 70 kV/cm, which is superimposed on top
of the built-in polarization fields. Each period consists of 3 GaN QWs and 3 Al0.15 Ga0.85 N
barriers and their thicknesses are given in the caption of Fig. 1. The conduction band offset
between GaN and Al0.15 Ga0.85 N is estimated to 0.2 eV [17] including the energy band
bowing parameter in AlGaN alloy [18]. The three subbands formed in a period have their
associated envelope functions localized in different QWs. The three subbands form a threelevel laser system with levels 3 and 2 being the upper and lower laser states, respectively.

G. Sun et al. / Superlattices and Microstructures 37 (2005) 107113

109

Fig. 1. Band structure, subband energy separations and envelope wavefunctions of the active region of the
proposed Al0.15 Ga0.85 N/GaN THz QCL. Two periods are shown with each period consisting of 3 GaN QWs
and 3 Al0.15 Ga0.85 N barriers with layer thicknesses (): 30/40/30/25/20/25 (wells in bold and barrier in plain)
under an electric bias of 70 kV/cm.

The laser operates as follows: electrons are selectively injected into the upper laser state 3;
undergo a lasing transition to lower laser state 2; and then depopulate to ground state 1
which is in resonance with level 3 of the next period so electrons can cascade into the next
lasing stage through resonant tunnelingthus the lasing cycle repeats itself. The choice of
three coupled QWs in each period offers us the freedom to engineer the proper subband
energy separations and their desired lifetimes. The photon energy generated from the lasing
transition is
E 32 = 28 meV corresponding to 6.77 THz radiation (44.3 m). The energy
separation between levels 2 and 1 is carefully designed to be
E 21 = 91 meV, just above
the LO-phonon energy (90 meV), such that depopulation of lower laser state 2 can be
accelerated through the fast near-resonant LO-phonon emission process yielding very short
lifetime 2 for the lower laser state 2. The large spatial separation between levels 3 and 1,
on the other hand, ensures longer lifetime 3 for the upper laser state 3. The relatively
wide barrier (30 ) that separates the neighboring periods prevents the escape of electrons
from the upper laser state directly into the next period, reducing the possibility of parasitic
current.
A key component of QCLs is the electron transport from one period to the next. This is
accomplished in GaAs-system QCLs either with a minband of a chirped SL or with coupled
states, both of which allowed some degree of misalignment in the band lineup for electron
injection. In comparison with the GaAs-based QCLs, our design involves only 3 QWs per
period. The injection of electrons relies solely on resonant tunneling of two neighboring
states. It is easy to see that any inaccuracy in either design or growth of the QCLs can
create transport bottlenecking in the laser operation, resulting in a significant buildup of
electron density in one period. It is not difficult to see from Fig. 1 that this electron buildup

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G. Sun et al. / Superlattices and Microstructures 37 (2005) 107113

occurs in subband 1. This can lead to a dramatic increase of the electron population in the
lower laser state (subband 2) if the separation energy E 2 E 1 is comparable to the thermal
energy kB T . The large LO-phonon energy (90 meV) in a GaN-based system allows us
to engineer a large energy separation
E 21 (>90 meV) when near-resonant LO-phonon
emission process is employed to rapidly depopulate the lower laser state.

3. Lifetime analysis
The lifetimes of subbands are mostly determined by the nonradiative scattering
mechanisms such as LO-phonon, acoustic phonon, electronelectron, interface roughness
and impurity scattering processes. Although the interface roughness and impurity
scattering are expected to play an important role in GaN-based QCLs, for simplicity we
have not included these effects in our calculation of lifetimes as they will depend on
actual structural parameters and qualities. For 2 1 and 3 1 processes where the
energy separations are larger than the GaN LO-phonon energy of 90 meV, the LO-phonon
emission scattering is the dominant process. The calculation of LO-phonon scattering is
performed using bulk GaN phonon modes, which is a good approximation since the Al
content (15%) in AlGaN barriers is relatively low; consequently the scattering times of
21 = 0.24 ps and 31 = 2.7 ps are obtained as shown in Fig. 2. These values are found to
be largely temperature independent and far smaller than in similar GaAs-based structures.
Since the energy separation between subbands 3 and 2 is less than that of LO-phonon, the
lifetime associated with the 3 2 transition is mostly determined by the combination of
three scattering mechanisms: LO-phonon absorption, nonradiative acoustic phonon and
electronelectron processes. Since the electron density levels are estimated to be less
than 1010/cm2 for the injected current density values throughout the temperature range,
the lifetime associated with electronelectron scattering is longer than 40 ps which is
substantially slower than that of the phonon scattering [12,13]. In addition, the 2 3
transition becomes appreciable at higher temperatures as electrons can absorb a LOphonon to make such a transition. Both LO-phonon absorption and acoustic phonon
scatterings are highly temperature dependent. The effective lifetimes for the upper and
lower laser states given by 1/3 = 1/31 + 1/32 and 1/2 = 1/21 + 1/23 are also
shown in Fig. 2. It can be seen from Fig. 2 that even though the scattering due to interface
roughness and impurity is not determined, the much shorter lifetime of the lower laser state
2 due to the fast depopulation process 2 1 via near-resonant LO-phonon emission shall
prevail to preserve the condition of population inversion.

4. Temperature dependence of threshold current

Having evaluated the various intersubband transition lifetimes, we can now establish
the population distribution of this three-level system in order to determine the optical gain
under an injected current density. The system of rate equations with the assumption of

G. Sun et al. / Superlattices and Microstructures 37 (2005) 107113

111

Fig. 2. Lifetimes associated with various scattering processes as a function of temperature.

unity injection efficiency for electron densities at laser threshold can be written as,
N3 N 3
N2 N 2
N2 N 2
N2
=

t
32
23
21
J
N2 N 2
N3 N 3
N3 N 3
N3
= +

t
e
23
32
31

(1)

where e is the free-electron charge, J is the injected current density, Ni (i = 1, 2, 3)

is the area electron density in subband i . The thermal population effect in the threelevel system is taken into account in Eq. (1) by allowing Ni to approach N i , which is
the area electron density in subband i assuming thermal equilibrium distribution when
the injected current is turned off. They are related by the electron density conservation
N1 + N2 + N3 = N 1 + N 2 + N 3 and the approximation of Boltzmann distribution
N 2 /N 1 = exp(
E 21 /kB T ) and N 3 /N 1 = exp(
E 31/kB T ). This implies that
electron thermalization only causes less than 3% of the electron population to reside in
the lower laser state (subband 2) and less than 1% in the upper laser state (subband 3) at
room temperature.
For steady state operation, the rate equations in Eq. (1) can be set equal to zero to
obtain electron density distributions in the laser system. Given the electron densities in the
two laser states of the system, the optical gain (in cm1 ) for the z-polarized (growth
direction) photon emission can be determined by
=

2e2 |z 23 |2 2 N3 N2
no (
23 ) o
L

(2)

where the dipole matrix between the two laser states z 23 = 15 , the index of refraction
n = 2.29 at the lasing wavelength o = 44.3 m, the FWHM for lasing line is taken
to be
23 = 3 meV, and the length of a period in the active region L = 170 .
The promise of improved temperature characteristic for GaN-based THz QCLs is better

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G. Sun et al. / Superlattices and Microstructures 37 (2005) 107113

Fig. 3. Threshold current density as a function of temperature for maintaining a threshold THz gain of 50/cm.

illustrated with the results of temperature dependence of the threshold pumping current
Jth with the assumption of a fixed value of optical gain that is required to compensate
the losses found within THz QCL laser cavities, that are typically less than w = 50/cm
[5,6,9]. Our calculated result of threshold current density Jth as a function of temperature
is shown in Fig. 3 for providing the value of threshold gain at th = 50/cm. We have
found Jth = 310 A/cm2 at 30 K and 832 A/cm2 at 300 K. We have fitted the data to the
standard expression for the temperature dependence of threshold: Jth = Jo exp(T /To ), and
obtained the characteristic temperature To = 136 K for the GaN-based QCL structure in
the temperature range of T > 200 K.
Acknowledgement
This work is supported in part by the Air Force Research Laboratory under a contract.
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