Thermal conductivity tensors of the cladding and active layers of antimonide infrared lasers and detectors

The in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivities of the cladding layers and active quantum wells of interband cascade lasers and type-II superlattice infrared detector are measured by the 2-wire 3ω method. The layers investigated include InAs/AlSb superlattice cladding layers, InAs/GaInSb/InAs/AlSb W-active quantum wells, an InAs/GaSb superlattice absorber, an InAs/GaSb/AlSb M-structure, and an AlAsSb digital alloy. The in-plane thermal conductivity of the InAs/AlSb superlattice is 4-5 times higher than the cross-plane value. The isotropic thermal conductivity of the AlAsSb digital alloy matches a theoretical expectation, but it is one order of magnitude lower than the only previously-reported experimental value. © 2013 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: (140.6810) Thermal effects, (140.5960) Semiconductor lasers, (260.3060) Infrared,(310.6870) Thin films, other properties. References and links 1. S. Abdollahi Pour, E.K. Huang, G. Chen, A. Haddadi, B.M. Nguyen and M. Razeghi, “High operating temperature midwave infrared photodiodes and focal plane arrays based on Type-II InAs/GaSb superlattices,” Appl. Phys. Lett., 98, 143501 (2011). 2. E.K. Huang, M.A. Hoang, G. Chen, S.R. Darvish, A. Haddadi, and M. Razeghi, “Highly selective two-color midwave and long-wave infrared detector hybrid based on Type-II superlattices,” Optics Letters, 37, 4744 (2012). 3. D. Caffey, T. Day, C. S. Kim, M. Kim, I. Vurgaftman, W. W. Bewley, J. R. Lindle, C. L. Canedy, J. Abell, and J. R. Meyer, “Performance characteristics of a continuous-wave compact widely tunable external cavity interband cascade lasers,” Optics Letters, 18, 15691 (2010). 4. I. Vurgaftman, W. W. Bewley, C. L. Canedy, C. S. Kim, M. Kim, J. R. Lindle, C. D. Merritt, J. Abell, and J. R. Meyer, “Mid-IR Type-II interband cascade lasers,” IEEE J. Sel. Topics Quantum Electron., 17, 1435 (2011). 5. C. Zhou, S. Birner, Yang Tang, K. Heinselman, and M. Grayson, “Driving perpendicular heat flow: p× n type transverse thermoelectrics for microscale and cryogenic peltier cooling,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 227701 (2013). 6. T. Borca-Tasciuc, D. Achimov, W. L. Liu, G. Chen, H.-W. Ren, C.-H. Lin, and S. S. Pei, “Thermal conductivity of InAs/AlSb superlattices,” Microscale Thermophysical Engineering 5 225 (2001). 7. Borca-Tasciuc, T., Kumar, A. R., and Chen, G., “Data reduction in 3ω method for thin-film thermal conductivity determination,” Rev. Sci. Instrum., 72, 2139 (2001). 8. T. Borca-Tasciuc, D. W. Song, J. R. Meyer, I. Vurgaftman, M.-J. Yang, B. Z. Nosho, and L. J. Whitman, H. Lee and R. U. Martinelli, G. W. Turner and M. J. Manfra and G. Chen, “Thermal conductivity of AlAs0.07Sb0.93 and Al0.9Ga0.1As0.07Sb0.93 alloys and (AlAs)1/(AlSb)11 digital-alloy superlattices,” J. Appl. Phys., 92, 4994 (2002). #193146 $15.00 USD Received 1 Jul 2013; revised 5 Aug 2013; accepted 5 Aug 2013; published 6 Sep 2013 (C) 2013 OSA 1 October 2013 | Vol. 3, No. 10 | DOI:10.1364/OME.3.001632 | OPTICAL MATERIALS EXPRESS 1632 9. C. Zhou, B.-M. Nguyen, M. Razeghi, M. Grayson, “Thermal conductivity of InAs/GaSb Superlattice,” J. Elect. Mat., 41, 2322 (2012). 10. C. Zhou, G. Koblmuller, M. Bichler, G. Abstreiter, M. Grayson, “Thermal conductivity tensor of semiconductor layers using two-wire 3ω method,” Proc. of SPIE, 8631, 863129 (2013). 11. J. Garg, N. Bonini and N. Marzari, “High thermal conductivity in short-period superlattices,” Nano Lett., 11, 5135 (2011).