High power, multispectral, phased arrays based on quantum cascade lasers

The objective of this project is to develop high power, narrow linewidth, laser sources which can be integrated with UC Davis’ 2-D beam steering architecture. The final subsystem is designed to be multispectral, which requires development of multiple sources for the MWIR_1 (lambda=3.8 micron), MWIR_2 (lambda =4.5-4.6 micron), and LWIR (lambda =6-10 micron) spectral regions. The sources will be based on Northwestern’s unique high efficiency quantum cascade laser (QCL) architecture. Extremely high continuous wave (CW) power output power (>20 W) in each band will be achieved by integrating a tunable seed laser with a variable phase quantum cascade amplifier (QCA) array. The number of array elements will be scaled progressively, along with the output power. Discrete QCL/ QCA chips will be developed and tested in-house to determine power output, beam quality, output phase profile, and an on-chip phase control algorithm. The beam quality objective for each output waveguide is M squared <1.3.