Possibility of infrared laser in a resonant tunneling structure

We analyze the possibility of creating population inversion and optical gain in a specially designed resonant tunneling superstructure when the energy between active quantum levels is greater than the optical phonon energy. Each of twenty periods of the structure represents a complete resonant tunneling, double quantum well diode designed to provide escape time from the lower level of the active well much shorter than the electron-optical phonon relaxation time. Three heterostructure materials are considered: InAs/AlSb, InGaAs/AlAs, and GaAs/AlAs. In all three cases optical gains of 50–90 cm−1 were calculated to be present for the photon energy of ≊0.1 eV.