High-Power, Narrow-Linewidth Distributed-Feedback Quantum-Cascade Laser for Molecular Spectroscopy

oleh: Mathieu Bertrand, Aleksandr Shlykov, Mehran Shahmohamadi, Mattias Beck, Stefan Willitsch, Jérôme Faist

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2022-08-01

Deskripsi

Quantum cascade lasers are versatile light sources in the mid-infrared range for molecular spectroscopy which find a wide range of applications from high-resolution studies to sensing. While devices with either high power or narrow spectral linewidth have previously been reported, there is still a lack of sources combining both of these characteristics which are particularly important for precision measurements of weak spectroscopic transitions. In this article, we describe and characterize a novel master-oscillator power-amplifier distributed-feedback quantum cascade laser designed to fill this gap. At an output power of 300 mW, the device features a free-running linewidth of 1.3 MHz, measured with a frequency discriminator technique, at an emission wavenumber of 2185 cm<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></semantics></math></inline-formula>. This linewidth is sufficiently narrow to enable a further reduction by a tight lock to a high-Q oscillator.