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Quantum cascade lasers are unipolar semiconductor lasers based on intersubband transitions in quantum wells. They have shown laser operation from above 100 THz down to the terahertz region and are promising sources for the terahertz region (0.3-10 THz) which is lacking of efficient narrowband radiation sources. A low frequency quantum cascade laser design is developed that faces the emerging challenges when the photon energy approaches the broadening of the energy levels. A record lowest operation frequency of 1.2 THz is demonstrated. A hybrid laser-oscillator for the terahertz is developed in the second part of this work, consisting of an optical gain medium and an electronic resonator. The resonator is an inductor-capacitor resonant circuit. The so called circuit based laser has the property of being a deep sub-wavelength sized microcavity laser. The effective mode volume is among the smallest for electrically pumped lasers. The circuit based resonator in combination with an active region could lead to a class of new devices to generate and manipulate terahertz radiation that exploit cavity quantum electrodynamic effects.

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got his MSc in Physics at the University of Neuchâtel in 2005. He is the author of several key-publications in the field of Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers. In 2011 he got a Ph.D. in Physics at the ETH Zürich and since then he is working as a development engineer in the field of X-ray tubes at Comet AG in Flamatt.

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