Growth and characterization of mid-infrared microdisk lasers operating in continuous-wave mode up to 2 °C

Abstract Growth and characterization of lead salt microdisk lasers with near-room-temperature continuous-wave (cw) emission at mid-infrared wavelengths around 4.3 μ m is reported. The laser structures were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on BaF 2 substrates and consist of a PbSe single quantum well embedded in Pb 0.94 Sr 0.06 Se barrier layers. Under optical excitation, cw lasing is obtained up to temperatures of 275 K, i.e., 2 °C. With increasing pump power, the narrow laser line shifts to shorter wavelengths, from which an internal temperature of about 20 °C is estimated. We also find a good agreement between the observed laser lines and the calculated optical microdisk resonator modes.