Open AccessSingle-mode, narrow-linewidth external cavity quantum cascade laser through optical feedback from a partial-reflector
Author(s) -
Richard Cendejas,
Mark C. Phillips,
Tanya L. Myers,
Matthew S. Taubman
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.18.026037
Subject(s) - laser linewidth , optics , laser , quantum cascade laser , distributed feedback laser , cascade , materials science , reflector (photography) , injection seeder , optoelectronics , physics , light source , chemistry , chromatography
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.