Femtosecond pulses from a mid-infrared quantum cascade laser

Abstract

The quantum cascade laser (QCL) has evolved to be a compact, powerful source of coherent mid-infrared (mid-IR) light. However, its fast gain dynamics strongly restricts the formation of ultrashort pulses. As such, the shortest pulses reported so far were limited to a few picoseconds with some hundreds of milliwatts of peak power, strongly narrowing their applicability for time-resolved and nonlinear experiments. Here, we demonstrate an alternative approach capable of producing near-transform-limited sub-picosecond pulses with several watts of peak power. Starting from a frequency modulated phase-locked state, which most efficiently exploits the gain of the active region, ultrashort high peak power pulses are generated via external pulse compression. We assess their temporal nature by means of a novel optical sampling method, coherent beat note interferometry and interferometric autocorrelation. These results open new pathways for nonlinear physics in the mid-infrared.

References in corpus (5)

• Quantum cascade laser frequency stabilisation at the sub-Hz level
• Retrieval of phase relation and emission profile of quantum cascade laser frequency combs
• Mode-locked ultrashort pulses from an 8 $\mu$m wavelength semiconductor laser
• Mid-infrared quantum cascade laser frequency combs with a microstrip-like line waveguide geometry
• Pulses from a mid-infrared quantum cascade laser frequency comb using an external compressor

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Coherent control of a high-orbital hole in a semiconductor quantum dot
• Frequency-modulated combs via on-chip field enhancement
• Fundamental scaling limits and bandwidth shaping of frequency-modulated combs
• 70 MW-level picosecond mid-infrared radiation generation by difference frequency generation in AgGaS2, BaGa4Se7, LiGaSe2, and LiGaS2
• Integrated thin film lithium niobate mid-infrared modulator
• Spectral shaping of fast-gain frequency combs through phases in synthetic dimensions
• Heterodyne coherent detection of the electric field temporal trace emitted by frequency-modulated comb lasers
• Efficient computation of coherent multimode instabilities in lasers using a spectral approach
• On-chip pulse generation at 8 μm wavelength