Surface plasmon waveguides with gradually doped or NiAl intermetallic compound buried contact for terahertz quantum cascade lasers

Improved designs of surface plasmon waveguides for use in GaAs/AlGaAs terahertz quantum cascade lasers are presented. Modal losses and confinement factors are calculated for TM modes in metal-variably doped multilayer semiconductor and metal-intermetallic compound layer clad structures and compared with those obtained in recently realized metal-highly doped semiconductor clad layer structures. Considerable improvements of the mode confinement factors are predicted, and guidelines for choosing the confinement layer parameters are given.