Compressed pulses from a mid-infrared QCL frequency comb (Conference Presentation)

Matthew Singleton; Pierre Jouy; Mattias Beck; Jerome Faist

doi:10.1117/12.2511004

13 March 2019 Compressed pulses from a mid-infrared QCL frequency comb (Conference Presentation)

Matthew Singleton, Pierre Jouy, Mattias Beck, Jerome Faist

Proceedings Volume 10939, Novel In-Plane Semiconductor Lasers XVIII; 1093915 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2511004
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2019, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

It has long been established that the combs emitted by quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) cannot be described as a train of short pulses, separated by the cavity roundtrip time. Instead, simulations made for typical device parameters suggest that, in steady state, these four-wave mixing driven combs have a constant temporal envelope, and undergo periodic rapid and complicated swings in frequency. Recent work in characterising the modal phases has revealed a state which, somewhat unexpectedly, has a simple parabolic phase profile, corresponding to a linearly chirped output field. Moreover, this phase relationship was shown to be stable over time, and to be recoverable after the laser’s power had been cycled; from the perspective of a fixed external pulse compression scheme, these last two properties are critical. In this work, we use a pair of gratings and lenses in a 4-f Martinez-type scheme to modify the phase of a high-power (~1 W) QCL comb emitted at 8.2 um with more than 100 cm-1 spectral bandwidth. By changing the position of the second grating, a parabolic phase can be added to or subtracted from the field. Employing this scheme, we demonstrate a compression of the QCL output from a 133 ps continuous wave waveform, to a train of pulses of width < 20 ps, and a peak power more than 10x that of the original. With this proof-of-principle work, we highlight the potential of the QCL system to deliver short, powerful pulses, with applications in nonlinear spectroscopy, for example.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Matthew Singleton, Pierre Jouy, Mattias Beck, and Jerome Faist "Compressed pulses from a mid-infrared QCL frequency comb (Conference Presentation)", Proc. SPIE 10939, Novel In-Plane Semiconductor Lasers XVIII, 1093915 (13 March 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2511004

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KEYWORDS

Quantum cascade lasers

Frequency combs

Mid-IR

Picosecond phenomena

Complex systems

Four wave mixing

Lenses

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