Injection Lasers made of PbTe whisker crystals

Whisker PbTe crystals 70–120 μm in diameter were used as injection lasers with two p-n junction geometries: transverse and coaxial. Lasing was observed in the pulsed regime at T = 4.2 K (λ = 6.5 μm). The mode structure of the emission spectra was difficult to control because electrical and optical quality of whisker crystals was not sufficiently high. Total internal reflection modes and isotropic angular distributions in the p-n junction plane were observed for the transverse diodes.