Development and Application of Silicon-Chip-Based Mid-Infrared Frequency Combs
Abstract
Mid-infrared (mid-IR) optical frequency combs consist of many discrete components of radiation that are evenly spaced in frequency to extraordinarily high precision. Such combs can be applied to the rapid detection of chemical and warfare agents with high precision and selectivity. To date, Mid-IR combs have been produced only with laser systems that are tabletop in size and require environmental isolation to achieve high performance. The proposed research is to develop compact, integrated, mid-infrared (MIR) frequency comb sources spanning the 3 – 6 µm regime based on parametric comb generation in silicon-based microresonators pumped by quantum cascade lasers (QCL’s). Such a system will be applied to highly sensitive, selective and rapid detection of explosives and chemical warfare agents and would represent an enormous advance in sensing capability in a package that would be robust, portable, take up less than 10 cubic centimeters, weigh less than 100 grams, and consume less than 5 W of power. Our goals for the proposed research are as follows: 1) Develop a QCL pump source that is efficiently coupled to a silicon-based microresonator that can be rapidly tuned via thermal control; 2) Achieve an octave-spanning mid-IR comb at ultralow powers (< 100 mW) with a comb spacing of 40 GHz and 10 µW of comb-tooth power at critical spectral wavelengths and that can be tuned within 10 µs over a single free-spectral range; 3) Demonstrate the ability of this highly integrated system to perform frequency comb spectroscopy for highly selective, sensitive, and rapid detection of explosives and chemical warfare agents.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 20, 2016
- Source ID
- W31P4Q1610002
Entities
People
- Alexander L. Gaeta
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Columbia University
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency