Pranalytica, Inc. — Department of Defense STTR Phase II: Currently there is wide variation in QCL performance at different wavelengths. Performanc

Description

Currently there is wide variation in QCL performance at different wavelengths. Performance of new generation of QCLs recently demonstrated at wavelengths near 4.6 & #956;m exceeds the performance of legacy QCLs at other wavelengths by a wide margin. Much of the progress at 4.6 & #956;m was made under DARPA"s EMIL program. The objective of the present Phase II proposal is to experimentally validate the new QCL design and packaging concepts developed in Phase I for radical improvements in QCL performance at all wavelengths, which are based on our recent advances in QCL performance made at 4.6 & #956;m. Specifically, we will concentrate our efforts on QCL developments in 3.5 to 4.2 & #956;m and 8 to 12 & #956;m regions using our revolutionary QCL structure design concepts that afford unprecedented design freedom for performance optimization. We will further scale up the power and wall-plug efficiency from individual QCL devices (single emitters) through improvements in package-level heat dissipation. The resulting commercial availability of high-power, high efficiency MWIR and LWIR QCLs will revolutionize many nascent applications, such as DIRCM, chemical sensing, LADAR, DIAL, non-invasive medical diagnostics, and free space optical communications.