Optical sideband generation up to room temperature with mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers

Sarah Houver (1) , P Cavalié (1) , M Renaudat St-Jean (2) , M.I. Amanti (2) , Carlo Sirtori (2) , L.H. Li (3) , A.G. Davies (3) , E.H. Linfield (3) , T.A.S. Pereira (4) , A Lebreton (1) , J Tignon (1) , S.S. Dhillon (1)

1 LPA - Laboratoire Pierre Aigrain
2 MPQ (UMR_7162) - Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques
3 University of Leeds
4 Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso

Mid-infrared (MIR) sideband generation on a near infrared (NIR) optical carrier is demonstrated within a quantum cascade laser (QCL). By employing an externally injected NIR beam, E NIR , that is resonant with the interband transitions of the quantum wells in the QCL, the nonlinear susceptibility is enhanced, leading to both frequency mixing and sideband generation. A GaAs-based MIR QCL (E QCL = 135 meV) with an aluminum-reinforced waveguide was utilized to overlap the NIR and MIR modes with the optical nonlinearity of the active region. The resulting difference sideband (E NIR – E QCL) shows a resonant behavior as a function of NIR pump wavelength and a maximum second order nonlinear susceptibility, χ (2) , of ~1 nm/V was obtained. Further, the sideband intensity showed little dependence with the operating temperature of the QCL, allowing sideband generation to be realized at room temperature.

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Sarah Houver, P Cavalié, M Renaudat St-Jean, M.I. Amanti, Carlo Sirtori, et al.. Optical sideband generation up to room temperature with mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers. Optics Express, 2015, 23 (4), pp.4012-4020. ⟨10.1364/OE.23.004012⟩. ⟨hal-01275202⟩