Abstract
We demonstrate the importance of Coulomb interactions in bound-to-continuum THz quantum cascade lasers, employing an ensemble Monte-Carlo analysis. In such structures, the electron-electron interactions between the closely spaced energy levels in the minibands tend to play a more important role than in resonant-phonon depopulation designs, where the energy levels are more energetically separated and LO phonon scattering prevails. Also a significant conduction band bending due to space charge effects is observed. Thus, especially for bound-to-continuum structures careful modelling of Coulomb interactions is crucial to obtain good agreement with experiment. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.