Vertical cavity surface emitting terahertz laser

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel terahertz laser based on vertical cavity surface emission in semiconductor microcavities with quantum wells, utilizing strong coupling and exciton-polariton transitions for dual optical and terahertz emission.

Contribution

It introduces a new design for terahertz lasers using exciton-polariton transitions in microcavities, highlighting the threshold sensitivity to photon statistics.

Findings

Lasing occurs via stimulated terahertz transition at threshold

Dual emission in optical and terahertz ranges demonstrated

Threshold depends on photon statistics of pump light

Abstract

Vertical cavity surface emitting terahertz lasers can be realized in conventional semiconductor microcavities with embedded quantum wells in the strong coupling regime. The cavity is to be pumped optically at half the frequency of the 2p exciton state. Once a threshold population of 2p excitons is achieved, a stimulated terahertz transition populates the lower exciton-polariton branch, and the cavity starts emitting laser light both in the optical and terahertz ranges. The lasing threshold is sensitive to the statistics of photons of the pumping light.