Picosecond pulses from a mid-infrared interband cascade laser
Abstract
The generation of mid-infrared pulses in monolithic and electrically pumped devices is of great interest for mobile spectro-scopic instruments. The gain dynamics of interband cascade lasers (ICL) are promising for mode-locked operation at low threshold currents. Here, we present conclusive evidence for the generation of picosecond pulses in ICLs via active mode-locking. At small modulation power, the ICL operates in a linearly chirped frequency comb regime characterized by strong frequency modulation. Upon increasing the modulation amplitude, the chirp decreases until broad pulses are formed. Careful tuning of the modulation frequency minimizes the remaining chirp and leads to the generation of 3.2 ps pulses. Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Keywords
MODE-LOCKINGPersistent identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/11012/193427Document type
Peer reviewedDocument version
Final PDFSource
Optica. 2020, vol. 6, issue 10, p. 1334-1337.https://www.osapublishing.org/optica/abstract.cfm?uri=optica-6-10-1334