TY - JOUR
T1 - Ultra-broadband semiconductor laser
AU - Gmachl, Claire
AU - Sivco, Deborah L.
AU - Colombelli, Raffaele
AU - Capasso, Federico
AU - Cho, Alfred Y.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank H. Palme for the CAI A44A and C. Francis and G. MacPherson for meteorite samples. We thank G.J. Wasserburg, M. Petaev, A.G.W. Cameron, R. Gallino and A. Davis for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by NASA (Origins of Solar Systems and Cosmochemistry) and NSF (EAR-IF).
Funding Information:
We thank S. N. G. Chu for help with material characterization, in particular transmission electron microscopy; T. S. Mosely and A. Straub for help with measurements; and D. A. Ackerman for discussions. This work was supported in part by DARPA/US Army Research Office.
PY - 2002/2/21
Y1 - 2002/2/21
N2 - The fundamental mechanism behind laser action leads in general only to narrowband, single-wavelength emission. Several approaches for achieving spectrally broadband laser action have been put forward, such as enhancing the optical feedback in the wings of the gain spectrum, multi-peaked gain spectra, and the most favoured technique at present, ultrashort pulse excitation. Each of these approaches has drawbacks, such as a complex external laser cavity configuration, a non-flat optical gain envelope function, or an inability to operate in continuous mode, respectively. Here we present a monolithic, mid-infrared 'super-continuum' semiconductor laser that has none of these drawbacks. We adopt a quantum cascade configuration, where a number of dissimilar intersubband optical transitions are made to cooperate in order to provide broadband optical gain from 5 to 8 μm wavelength. Laser action with a Fabry-Pérot spectrum covering all wavelengths from 6 to 8 μm simultaneously is demonstrated with this approach. Lasers that emit light over such an extremely wide wavelength range are of interest for applications as varied as terabit optical data communications or ultra-precision metrology and spectroscopy.
AB - The fundamental mechanism behind laser action leads in general only to narrowband, single-wavelength emission. Several approaches for achieving spectrally broadband laser action have been put forward, such as enhancing the optical feedback in the wings of the gain spectrum, multi-peaked gain spectra, and the most favoured technique at present, ultrashort pulse excitation. Each of these approaches has drawbacks, such as a complex external laser cavity configuration, a non-flat optical gain envelope function, or an inability to operate in continuous mode, respectively. Here we present a monolithic, mid-infrared 'super-continuum' semiconductor laser that has none of these drawbacks. We adopt a quantum cascade configuration, where a number of dissimilar intersubband optical transitions are made to cooperate in order to provide broadband optical gain from 5 to 8 μm wavelength. Laser action with a Fabry-Pérot spectrum covering all wavelengths from 6 to 8 μm simultaneously is demonstrated with this approach. Lasers that emit light over such an extremely wide wavelength range are of interest for applications as varied as terabit optical data communications or ultra-precision metrology and spectroscopy.
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U2 - 10.1038/415883a
DO - 10.1038/415883a
M3 - Article
C2 - 11859362
AN - SCOPUS:0037148759
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 415
SP - 883
EP - 887
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 6874
ER -