Electrical beam steering of Y-coupled quantum cascade lasers

The authors describe electrical beam steering of mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers with a monolithically integrated Y-coupled cavity and electrically separated branches. The deflection of the laser beam is achieved without any additional components such as optic or mechanic systems. This is done by injecting additional direct current into one of the two emitting branches, locally increasing the temperature. We estimate that the required temperature difference between left and right branch is approximately 12 K to achieve 2° of the beam steering. This value is in a good agreement with heat transfer simulations.