Coherent detection of an active mode-locked terahertz quantum cascade laser

Author

Santarelli, G. ; Barbieri, S. ; Ravaro, M. ; Gellie, P. ; Manquest, C. ; Sirtori, C. ; Khanna, S.P. ; Linfield, E.H. ; Davies, A.G.

Author_Institution

LNE-SYRTE, Obs. de Paris, Paris, France

fYear

2011

fDate

2-5 May 2011

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

2

Abstract

We demonstrate coherent detection of the emission from a terahertz frequency quantum cascade laser which is actively mode-locked by modulating its bias-current with a microwave synthesizer. Coherent sampling of the terahertz pulse train is achieved by phase-locking the repetition rate and the carrier frequency of the terahertz quantum cascade laser to the repetition rate of the of a commercial erbium-doped mode-locked femtosecond fibre laser. We show that the terahertz pulses from the quantum cascade laser are transform limited, and reconstruct the full emitted waveform.

Keywords

erbium; frequency synthesizers; laser mode locking; masers; quantum cascade lasers; terahertz wave detectors; Er; coherent detection; coherent sampling; erbium-doped mode locked; femtosecond fibre laser; microwave synthesizer; phase locking; terahertz pulse train; terahertz quantum cascade laser; Frequency modulation; Laser mode locking; Laser transitions; Photonics; Quantum cascade lasers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Frequency Control and the European Frequency and Time Forum (FCS), 2011 Joint Conference of the IEEE International

Conference_Location

San Fransisco, CA

ISSN

1075-6787

Print_ISBN

978-1-61284-111-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/FCS.2011.5977898

Filename

5977898