Single-mode, narrow-linewidth external cavity quantum cascade laser through optical feedback from a partial-reflector

Richard A Cendejas; Mark C Phillips; Tanya L Myers; Matthew S Taubman

doi:10.1364/OE.18.026037

Single-mode, narrow-linewidth external cavity quantum cascade laser through optical feedback from a partial-reflector

Opt Express. 2010 Dec 6;18(25):26037-45. doi: 10.1364/OE.18.026037.

Authors

Richard A Cendejas¹, Mark C Phillips, Tanya L Myers, Matthew S Taubman

Affiliation

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA. rcendeja@princeton.edu

PMID: 21164951
DOI: 10.1364/OE.18.026037

Abstract

An external-cavity (EC) quantum cascade (QC) laser using optical feedback from a partial-reflector is reported. With this configuration, the otherwise multi-mode emission of a Fabry-Perot QC laser was made single-mode with optical output powers exceeding 40 mW. A mode-hop free tuning range of 2.46 cm(-1) was achieved by synchronously tuning the EC length and QC laser current. The linewidth of the partial-reflector EC-QC laser was measured for integration times from 100 μs to 4 seconds, and compared to a distributed feedback QC laser. Linewidths as small as 480 kHz were recorded for the EC-QC laser.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Equipment Design
Equipment Failure Analysis
Feedback
Lasers*
Lenses*
Quantum Theory
Refractometry / instrumentation*