Controlling many-body effects in the midinfrared gain and terahertz absorption of quantum cascade laser structures

A many-body theory based on nonequilibrium Green functions, in which transport and optics are treated on a microscopic quantum-mechanical basis, is used to compute gain and absorption in the optical and terahertz regimes in quantum cascade laser structures. The relative importance of Coulomb interactions for different intersubband transitions depends strongly on the spatial overlap of the wave functions and the specific non-equilibrium populations within the subbands. The magnitude of the Coulomb effects can be controlled by changing the operation bias.