Stable mode-locked pulses from mid-infrared semiconductor lasers
Abstract
We report the unequivocal demonstration of mid-infrared mode-locked pulses from a semiconductor laser. The train of short pulses was generated by actively modulating the current and hence the optical gain in a small section of an edge-emitting quantum cascade laser (QCL). Pulses with pulse duration at full-width-at-half-maximum of about 3 ps and energy of 0.5 pJ were characterized using a second-order interferometric autocorrelation technique based on a nonlinear quantum well infrared photodetector. The mode-locking dynamics in the QCLs was modelled and simulated based on Maxwell-Bloch equations in an open two-level system. We anticipate our results to be a significant step toward a compact, electrically-pumped source generating ultrashort light pulses in the mid-infrared and terahertz spectral ranges.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0903.4385,
title = {Stable mode-locked pulses from mid-infrared semiconductor lasers},
author = {Christine Y. Wang and L. Kuznetsova and V. M. Gkortsas and L. Diehl and F. X. Kaertner and M. A. Belkin and A. Belyanin and X. Li and D. Ham and H Schneider and P. Grant and C. Y. Song and S. Haffouz and Z. R. Wasilewski and H. C. Liu and Federico Capasso},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.4385},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
26 pages, 4 figures