Porous waveguide facilitated low divergence quantum cascade laser

A quantum cascade laser with a porous waveguide structure emitting at 4.5 μm is reported. A branchlike porous structure filled with metal material was fabricated on both sides of the laser ridge by an electrochemical etching process. In contrast to the common ridge waveguide laser, devices with a porous structure give rather better beam quality. Utilizing this porous structure as a high-order mode absorber, the device exhibited fundamental transverse mode emission with a nearly diffraction limited far-field beam divergence angle of 4.9°.