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Femtosecond pulses from a mid-infrared quantum cascade laser.

ABSTRACT: The quantum cascade laser has evolved to be a compact, powerful source of coherent mid-infrared 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 approach capable of producing near-transform-limited subpicosecond pulses with several watts of peak power. Starting from a frequency-modulated phase-locked state, ultrashort high-peak-power pulses are generated via spectral filtering, gain modulation-induced spectral broadening and external pulse compression. We assess their temporal nature by means of a novel asynchronous sampling method, coherent beat note interferometry and interferometric autocorrelation. These results open new pathways for nonlinear physics in the mid-infrared.

SUBMITTER: Taschler P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8629755 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Femtosecond pulses from a mid-infrared quantum cascade laser.

Täschler Philipp P Bertrand Mathieu M Schneider Barbara B Singleton Matthew M Jouy Pierre P Kapsalidis Filippos F Beck Mattias M Faist Jérôme J

Nature photonics 20211122 12

The quantum cascade laser has evolved to be a compact, powerful source of coherent mid-infrared 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 approach capable of producing near-transform-limited subpicosecond pulses wi ...[more]

PMID: 34899974

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