Open Access
24 February 2023 Relative phase locking of a terahertz laser system configured with a frequency comb and a single-mode laser
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Abstract

Stable operation is one of the most important requirements for a laser source for high-precision applications. Many efforts have been made to improve the stability of lasers by employing various techniques, e.g., electrical and/or optical injection and phase locking. However, these techniques normally involve complex experimental facilities. Therefore, an easy implementation of the stability evaluation of a laser is still challenging, especially for lasers emitting in the terahertz (THz) frequency range because the broadband photodetectors and mature locking techniques are limited. In this work, we propose a simple method, i.e., relative phase locking, to quickly evaluate the stability of THz lasers without a need of a THz local oscillator. The THz laser system consists of a THz quantum cascade laser (QCL) frequency comb and a single-mode QCL. Using the single-mode laser as a fast detector, heterodyne signals resulting from the beating between the single-mode laser and the comb laser are obtained. One of the heterodyne beating signals is selected and sent to a phase-locked loop (PLL) for implementing the relative phase locking. Two kinds of locks are performed by feeding the output error signal of the PLL, either to the comb laser or to the single-mode laser. By analyzing the current change and the corresponding frequency change of the PLL-controlled QCL in each phase-locking condition, we, in principle, are able to experimentally compare the stability of the emission frequency of the single-mode QCL (fs) and the carrier envelope offset frequency (fCEO) of the QCL comb. The experimental results reveal that the QCL comb with the repetition frequency injection locked demonstrates much higher stability than the single-mode laser. The work provides a simple heterodyne scheme for understanding the stability of THz lasers, which paves the way for the further locking of the lasers and their high-precision applications in the THz frequency range.

CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE and CLP under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.
Wen Guan, Ziping Li, Shumin Wu, Han Liu, Xuhong Ma, Yiran Zhao, Chenjie Wang, Binbin Liu, Zhenzhen Zhang, Juncheng Cao, and Hua Li "Relative phase locking of a terahertz laser system configured with a frequency comb and a single-mode laser," Advanced Photonics Nexus 2(2), 026006 (24 February 2023). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.APN.2.2.026006
Received: 29 December 2022; Accepted: 30 January 2023; Published: 24 February 2023
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CITATIONS
Cited by 2 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Quantum cascade lasers

Mode locking

Laser stabilization

Terahertz radiation

Laser frequency

Repetition frequency

Heterodyning

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