Optical modulation of quantum cascade laser with optimized excitation wavelength

Tao Yang, Gang Chen, Chao Tian, Rainer Martini

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

The excitationwavelength for all-optical modulation of a 10.6 μmmid-infrared (MIR) quantumcascade laser (QCL)was varied in order to obtain maximum modulation depth. Both amplitude and wavelength modulation experiments were conducted at 820 nm and 1550 nm excitation respectively, whereby the latter matches the interband transition in the QCL active region. Experimental results show that for continuous-wave mode-operated QCL, the efficiency of free carrier generation is doubled under 1550 nm excitation compared with 820 nm excitation, resulting in an increase of the amplitude modulation index from 19% to 36%. At the same time, the maximum wavelength shift is more than doubled from 1.05 nm to 2.80 nm. Furthermore, for the first time to our knowledge, we demonstrated the optical switching of a QCL operated in pulse mode by simple variation of the excitation wavelength.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1200-1202
Number of pages3
JournalOptics Letters
Volume38
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 15 Apr 2013

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