Short Terahertz Pulse Generation from a Dispersion Compensated Modelocked Semiconductor Laser

Feihu Wang, Hanond Nong, Tobias Fobbe, Valentino Pistore, Sarah Houver, Sergej Markmann, Nathan Jukam, Maria Amanti, Carlo Sirtori, Souad Moumdji, Raffaele Colombelli, Lianhe Li, Edmund Linfield, Giles Davies, Juliette Mangeney, Jérôme Tignon, Sukhdeep Dhillon*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

66 Scopus citations

Abstract

Dispersion compensation is vital for the generation of ultrashort and single cycle pulses from modelocked lasers across the electromagnetic spectrum. It is typically based on addition of an extra dispersive element to the laser cavity that introduces a chromatic dispersion opposite to that of the gain medium. To date, however, no dispersion compensation schemes have been successfully applied to terahertz (THz) quantum cascade lasers for short and stable pulse generation in the THz range. In this work, a monolithic on-chip compensation scheme is realized for a modelocked QCL, permitting THz pulses to be considerably shortened from 16ps to 4ps. This is based on the realization of a small coupled cavity resonator that acts as an ‘off resonance’ Gires-Tournois interferometer (GTI), permitting large THz spectral bandwidths to be compensated. This novel application of a GTI opens up a direct and simple route to sub-picosecond and single cycle pulses in the THz range from a compact semiconductor source.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number1700013
JournalLaser and Photonics Reviews
Volume11
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2017

Keywords

  • Active mode-locking
  • Gires-Tournois interferometer
  • Quantum cascade laser
  • Short pulse generation
  • Terahertz

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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