Coherent Frequency Combs produced by Self Frequency Modulation in Quantum Cascade Lasers

Abstract: One salient characteristic of Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL) is its very shor gain recovery time that so far thwarted the attempts to achieve self-mode locking of the device into a train of single pulses. We show theoretically that four wave mixing, combined with the short gain recovery time causes QCL to operate in the self-frequency-modulated regime characterized by a constant power in time domain and stable coherent comb in the frequency domain.Coherent frequency comb may enable many potential applications of QCL in sensing and measurement.