Ultrashort Pulse Generation from Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers

ULTRAQCL

Finanziamento del: European Commission  
Calls: Horizon 2020 H2020-FETOPEN-2014-2015-RIA
Data inizio: 2015-10-01  Data fine: 2019-03-31
Budget totale: EUR 2.798.445,00  Quota INO del budget totale: EUR 133.125,00
Responsabile scientifico: Sukhdeep Dhillon    Responsabile scientifico per INO: De Natale Paolo

Sito Web: Visita

Principale Organizzazione/Istituzione/Azienda assegnataria: CNRS CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE

altre Organizzazione/Istituzione/Azienda coinvolte:
CNR – Istituto Nanoscienze

altro personale INO coinvolto:



Abstract: The generation of ultrafast and intense light pulses is an underpinning technology across the electromagnetic spectrum enabling the study of fundamental light-matter interactions, as well as industrial exploitation in a plethora of applications across the physical, chemical and biological sciences. A benchmark system for such studies is the modelocked Ti:Sapphire laser, which has grown from being a laboratory curiosity to an essential tool in a broad range of application sectors. Beyond Ti:Sapphire systems, there have been impressive developments in semiconductor based devices for pulse generation in the
optical range. These benefit from low system costs and are an enabling technology in new application domains including high speed communications.
However, in the terahertz (THz) frequency range, with its proven applications in imaging, metrology and non-destructive testing, a semiconductor based technology platform for intense and short pulse generation has yet to be realised. Ultrafast excitation of photoconductive switches or nonlinear crystals offer only low powers, low frequency modulation or broadband emission with little control of the spectral bandwidth.
In the ULTRAQCL project we will breakthrough this technological gap, using THz quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) as a foundational semiconductor device for generating intense and short THz pulses. QCLs are the only practical semiconductor system that offer gain at THz frequencies, hence making them suitable for pulse generation, with the ‘bandstructure-bydesign’ nature of QCLs allowing the frequency, bandwidth and pulse width to be entirely engineered. We will demonstrate: the first self-starting (passive) mode-locked THz QCL; the first hybrid modelocked THz QCL; the first gain-switched
modelocked QCL; and, the first QCL-based THz ultrafast pulse amplifier. The ULTRAQCL project will implement these radical schemes for pulse generation enabling ultrafast QCLs to become a ubiquitous technology for the THz range.

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