PNNL

Abstract

Quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) are a relatively new type of semiconductor laser operating in the mid- to long-wave infrared. These monopolar multilayered quantum well structures can be fabricated to operate anywhere between 3.5 microns and 20 microns, which includes the molecular fingerprint region of the in-frared. This makes them an ideal choice for infrared chemical sensing, a topic of great interest at present. Frequency stabilization and injection locking increase the utility of QCLs. We present results of locking quantum cascade lasers to optical cavities, achieving relative linewidths down to 5.6 Hz. We report injec-tion locking of one distributed feedback grating QCL with light from a similar QCL, demonstrating capture ranges of up to ±500 MHz, and suppression of amplitude modulation by up to 49 dB. We also present various cavity-enhanced chemical sensors employing the frequency stabilization techniques developed, in-cluding the resonant sideband technique known as Nice-Ohms. Sensitivities of 9.7 x 10-11 cm-1 Hz-1/2 have been achieved in nitrous oxide.