Broadband continuous single-mode tuning of a short-cavity quantum-cascade VECSEL
Abstract
Changing the length of a laser cavity is a simple method for continuously tuning the wavelength of a laser but is rarely used for broad fractional tuning, with a notable exception of the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). This is because, to avoid mode hopping, the cavity must be kept optically short to ensure a large free spectral range compared to the gain bandwidth of the amplifying material. Terahertz quantum-cascade lasers are ideal candidates for such a short cavity scheme as they demonstrate exceptional gain bandwidths (up to octave spanning) and can be integrated with broadband amplifying metasurfaces. Our report presents such a quantum-cascade metasurface-based vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL) that exhibits over 20% continuous fractional tuning of a single laser mode. Such tuning is possible because the metasurface has subwavelength thickness, which allows lasing on low-order Fabry–Pérot cavity modes. Good beam quality and high output power are simultaneously obtained.
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); National Science Foundation (NSF)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1575261
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-2019-4109J
Journal ID: ISSN 1749-4885; 674633
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000; NA-0003525
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nature Photonics
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 13; Journal Issue: 12; Journal ID: ISSN 1749-4885
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 42 ENGINEERING
Citation Formats
Curwen, Christopher A., Reno, John L., and Williams, Benjamin S. Broadband continuous single-mode tuning of a short-cavity quantum-cascade VECSEL. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1038/s41566-019-0518-z.
Curwen, Christopher A., Reno, John L., & Williams, Benjamin S. Broadband continuous single-mode tuning of a short-cavity quantum-cascade VECSEL. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-019-0518-z
Curwen, Christopher A., Reno, John L., and Williams, Benjamin S. Mon .
"Broadband continuous single-mode tuning of a short-cavity quantum-cascade VECSEL". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-019-0518-z. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1575261.
@article{osti_1575261,
title = {Broadband continuous single-mode tuning of a short-cavity quantum-cascade VECSEL},
author = {Curwen, Christopher A. and Reno, John L. and Williams, Benjamin S.},
abstractNote = {Changing the length of a laser cavity is a simple method for continuously tuning the wavelength of a laser but is rarely used for broad fractional tuning, with a notable exception of the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). This is because, to avoid mode hopping, the cavity must be kept optically short to ensure a large free spectral range compared to the gain bandwidth of the amplifying material. Terahertz quantum-cascade lasers are ideal candidates for such a short cavity scheme as they demonstrate exceptional gain bandwidths (up to octave spanning) and can be integrated with broadband amplifying metasurfaces. Our report presents such a quantum-cascade metasurface-based vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL) that exhibits over 20% continuous fractional tuning of a single laser mode. Such tuning is possible because the metasurface has subwavelength thickness, which allows lasing on low-order Fabry–Pérot cavity modes. Good beam quality and high output power are simultaneously obtained.},
doi = {10.1038/s41566-019-0518-z},
journal = {Nature Photonics},
number = 12,
volume = 13,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {9}
}
Web of Science
Works referenced in this record:
External cavity quantum cascade laser tunable from 7.6 to 11.4 μm
journal, August 2009
- Hugi, Andreas; Terazzi, Romain; Bonetti, Yargo
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 95, Issue 6
Fast terahertz imaging using a quantum cascade amplifier
journal, July 2015
- Ren, Yuan; Wallis, Robert; Jessop, David Stephen
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 1
High-sweep-rate 1310 nm MEMS-VCSEL with 150 nm continuous tuning range
journal, January 2012
- Jayaraman, V.; Cole, G. D.; Robertson, M.
- Electronics Letters, Vol. 48, Issue 14
Tunable Semiconductor Lasers: A Tutorial
journal, January 2004
- Coldren, L. A.; Fish, G. A.; Akulova, Y.
- Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 22, Issue 1
Terahertz quantum cascade lasers with >1 W output powers
journal, February 2014
- Valavanis, A.; Zhu, Jingxuan; Freeman, J.
- Electronics Letters, Vol. 50, Issue 4
MEMS-based tunable terahertz wire-laser over 330 GHz
journal, January 2011
- Qin, Qi; Reno, John L.; Hu, Qing
- Optics Letters, Vol. 36, Issue 5
Tunable micromachined vertical cavity surface emitting laser
journal, September 1995
- Li, G. S.; Yuen, W.; Wu, M. S.
- Electronics Letters, Vol. 31, Issue 19
High performance terahertz metasurface quantum-cascade VECSEL with an intra-cryostat cavity
journal, September 2017
- Xu, Luyao; Curwen, Christopher A.; Reno, John L.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 111, Issue 10
Octave-spanning semiconductor laser
journal, November 2014
- Rösch, Markus; Scalari, Giacomo; Beck, Mattias
- Nature Photonics, Vol. 9, Issue 1
Infrared (2–12 μm) solid-state laser sources: a review
journal, December 2007
- Godard, Antoine
- Comptes Rendus Physique, Vol. 8, Issue 10
Tuning a microcavity-coupled terahertz laser
journal, December 2015
- Castellano, Fabrizio; Bianchi, Vezio; Li, Lianhe
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 26
Metasurface external cavity laser
journal, November 2015
- Xu, Luyao; Curwen, Christopher A.; Hon, Philip W. C.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 22
Terahertz tomography using quantum-cascade lasers
journal, January 2012
- Wei Min Lee, Alan; Kao, Tsung-Yu; Burghoff, David
- Optics Letters, Vol. 37, Issue 2
Wavelength-Swept VCSELs
journal, November 2017
- Qiao, Pengfei; Cook, Kevin T.; Li, Kun
- IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vol. 23, Issue 6
Quasi-continuous frequency tunable terahertz quantum cascade lasers with coupled cavity and integrated photonic lattice
journal, January 2017
- Kundu, Iman; Dean, Paul; Valavanis, Alexander
- Optics Express, Vol. 25, Issue 1
Tunable terahertz quantum cascade lasers with external gratings
journal, January 2010
- Lee, Alan Wei Min; Williams, Benjamin S.; Kumar, Sushil
- Optics Letters, Vol. 35, Issue 7
Focusing metasurface quantum-cascade laser with a near diffraction-limited beam
journal, January 2016
- Xu, Luyao; Chen, Daguan; Itoh, Tatsuo
- Optics Express, Vol. 24, Issue 21
Random distributed feedback fibre laser
journal, February 2010
- Turitsyn, Sergei K.; Babin, Sergey A.; El-Taher, Atalla E.
- Nature Photonics, Vol. 4, Issue 4
The HITRAN2016 molecular spectroscopic database
journal, December 2017
- Gordon, I. E.; Rothman, L. S.; Hill, C.
- Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, Vol. 203
Theory, design, and performance of extended tuning range semiconductor lasers with sampled gratings
journal, June 1993
- Jayaraman, V.; Chuang, Z. -M.; Coldren, L. A.
- IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, Vol. 29, Issue 6
OCT Imaging up to 760 kHz Axial Scan Rate Using Single-Mode 1310nm MEMS-Tunable VCSELs with >100nm Tuning Range
conference, January 2011
- Jayaraman, V.; Jiang, J.; Li, H.
- CLEO: Science and Innovations, CLEO:2011 - Laser Applications to Photonic Applications
A review of MEMS external-cavity tunable lasers
journal, December 2006
- Liu, A. Q.; Zhang, X. M.
- Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, Vol. 17, Issue 1
Sampled grating, distributed feedback quantum cascade lasers with broad tunability and continuous operation at room temperature
journal, June 2012
- Slivken, S.; Bandyopadhyay, N.; Tsao, S.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 100, Issue 26
Widely tunable mode-hop free external cavity quantum cascade lasers for high resolution spectroscopy and chemical sensing
journal, May 2008
- Wysocki, G.; Lewicki, R.; Curl, R. F.
- Applied Physics B, Vol. 92, Issue 3
Tuning a terahertz wire laser
journal, November 2009
- Qin, Qi; Williams, Benjamin S.; Kumar, Sushil
- Nature Photonics, Vol. 3, Issue 12
Operation of terahertz quantum-cascade lasers at 164 K in pulsed mode and at 117 K in continuous-wave mode
journal, January 2005
- Williams, Benjamin S.; Kumar, Sushil; Hu, Qing
- Optics Express, Vol. 13, Issue 9
A nanoelectromechanical tunable laser
journal, February 2008
- Huang, Michael C. Y.; Zhou, Ye; Chang-Hasnain, Connie J.
- Nature Photonics, Vol. 2, Issue 3
Robust Density Matrix Simulation of Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers
journal, September 2018
- Burnett, Benjamin A.; Pan, Andrew; Chui, Chi On
- IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology, Vol. 8, Issue 5
Tuning a distributed feedback laser with a coupled microcavity
journal, January 2010
- Mahler, Lukas; Tredicucci, Alessandro; Beltram, Fabio
- Optics Express, Vol. 18, Issue 18
Terahertz quantum cascade VECSEL with watt-level output power
journal, July 2018
- Curwen, Christopher A.; Reno, John L.; Williams, Benjamin S.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 1
Antenna Model for Wire Lasers
journal, May 2006
- Orlova, E. E.; Hovenier, J. N.; Klaassen, T. O.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 96, Issue 17
Broadly tunable terahertz generation in mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers
journal, June 2013
- Vijayraghavan, Karun; Jiang, Yifan; Jang, Min
- Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Bound-to-continuum terahertz quantum cascade laser with a single-quantum-well phonon extraction/injection stage
journal, December 2009
- Amanti, Maria I.; Scalari, Giacomo; Terazzi, Romain
- New Journal of Physics, Vol. 11, Issue 12
OCT Imaging up to 760 kHz Axial Scan Rate Using Single-Mode 1310nm MEMS-Tunable VCSELs with >100nm Tuning Range
conference, January 2011
- Jayaraman, V.; Jiang, J.; Li, H.
- CLEO: Applications and Technology, CLEO:2011 - Laser Applications to Photonic Applications
Bound-to-continuum terahertz quantum cascade laser with a single-quantum-well phonon extraction/injection stage
text, January 2009
- Amanti, Maria I.; Scalari, Giacomo; Terazzi, Romain
- ETH Zurich
Works referencing / citing this record:
A wavelength-size tunable Fabry–Pérot laser
journal, November 2019
- Jukam, Nathan
- Nature Photonics, Vol. 13, Issue 12
Widely tunable compact terahertz gas lasers
journal, November 2019
- Chevalier, Paul; Amirzhan, Arman; Wang, Fan
- Science, Vol. 366, Issue 6467