Widely tunable harmonic frequency comb in a quantum cascade laser

Abstract

Self-starting harmonic frequency combs in quantum cascade lasers exhibit skipping of several tens of longitudinal modes of the cavity, producing widely spaced frequency combs which may be used for a number of applications, such as the generation of high-spectral-purity microwave and terahertz tones. Under pure electrical injection, the spacing of such combs is fixed by fundamental laser parameters and can hardly be controlled. Here, we demonstrate that harmonic frequency combs in quantum cascade lasers can be induced by optical injection of an external seed provided by a tunable source. This scheme enables wide tunability of the harmonic comb spacing, allowing the skipping between 44 and 171 longitudinal modes in a single device.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jul 16, 2018
Source ID
10.1063/1.5039611

Entities

People

  • Alexey Belyanin
  • Dmitry Kazakov
  • Enrique A. Mejia
  • Federico Capasso
  • Feng Xie
  • Kevin Lascola
  • Marco Piccardo
  • Paul Chevalier
  • Sajant Anand
  • Yongrui Wang

Organizations

  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • ETH Zurich
  • Harvard University
  • National Science Foundation
  • Texas A&M University
  • University of Texas at Austin
  • Wake Forest University

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Electronics Engineering
  • Nanofabrication and Microfabrication.
  • Pulsed Power and Plasma Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Quantum Computing
  • Space